Summer Daze
by ellabby
Summary: ((Reupload)) The Stewart family is left reeling after their Mama leaves. In the summer of '67 Miley sees, that a small town talks, the heat rises every day, and Nick Jonas come out to play.
1. Chapter 1

The summer I was eight, my mother made me a grilled cheese sandwich every morning for breakfast, served with a half a pickle and a bag of M&M's and a small bottle of root beer.

Sometimes, still, I can stare at the old white gas stove against the mustard yellow backsplash and see her there, making my breakfast— very early. Before the sun was even up, my mother would be there, her hair swept up and pinned and falling all over wearing the ratty robe Daddy bought for her to wear in the hospital when I was born.

I loved the summer I was eight.

Six days before my ninth birthday, my mother was standing in front of the stove in her ratty "Miley" robe, not making my grilled cheese.

I watched the palm of her hand hover above the flame, inching lower and lower and I was fascinated— until my father walked in smelling like Old Spice, wearing his standard blue police officer uniform and shoving my mother away from the stove.

"Jesus, Kimberly, what the hell are you—"

"Feeling something, Billy Ray," she said, and I still remember how she sounded— not like my mother at all.

Her chapped lips set in a smile and she wore no mascara that morning… and for the first time I noticed Mama looked… _sad_—which was silly.

Mother's don't get sad.

I stared at my empty plate and silently hated my dad— she was sad because of him.

That night I brushed my teeth next to my older brother Jackson, who was eleven at the time, and I told him I saw Dad push Mama. I didn't mention the blue flame or the sad.

Jackson spit in the sink and looked at me for a few seconds.

"Maybe she needed to be pushed," he said and tossed his toothbrush on the counter before walking out.

The year I was eight I had cold cereal for lunch every morning.

It was that year the unthinkable happened.

My mother burned dinner.

A roast chicken.

She locked herself in the bathroom and cried and I remember my Dad awkwardly putting black chicken, carrots and mashed potatoes on my and Jackson's plates— and it looked so wrong; that wasn't his job.

We ate in silence, aside from the harsh sobs coming from the bathroom. My father asked me and Jackson about school and reminded Jackson to do his homework and the sobs kept coming from the bathroom.

Finally, my father stood up and told us to clean up dinner. I opened my mouth to whine- I was supposed to go down the street to Lilly's—Lilly Truscott had just gotten purple lip gloss _and_matching nail polish.

"Don't be a baby," Jackson said before I even got any words out.

Jackson washed the dishes and I stood on the counter and put them away as he handed them to me.

"She's crying," I whispered to Jackson as he handed me a plate.

"No shit," he said.

Jackson was eleven by then and trying out rebellion— I thought he was the coolest person in the world.

"Why?" I asked, and Jackson shrugged.

"I never heard her cry before," I said.

"You must be deaf," Jackson said, turning back to the sink. "She locks herself in that bathroom and cries all night long."

"She does not," I retorted.

"She does, too," Jackson said, up to his knobby elbows in dishwater.

"I don't believe you."

"That's probably good," he shrugged.

After dinner had been cleared and the kitchen was cleaned, I walked up the stairs confused as to what on earth my mother could possibly have to cry about… but mostly I was still longing for Lilly and her purple nail polish.

I stopped outside the bathroom door and pressed my ear to it.

I heard my dad, whispering softly— I'd never heard my father whisper.

I heard Mama murmuring and still gasping from crying and I smelled cigarette smoke wafting from underneath the door.

"Quit eavesdropping, idiot," Jackson said when he walked by, math book in hand.

"I need to know if she's okay," I said, much louder than I intended.

Jackson looked at me for a second and then his shoulders sagged.

"Come on. You can come into my room. I'll let you work my stereo," he said.

And then I knew something must be very wrong.

I followed Jackson and he did let me work his stereo and he didn't even yell when I got the treble button stuck or when I spilled an old glass of lemonade on his carpet.

I talked about Lilly and how her dad was going to buy her a pink bike for her birthday and how she had a crush on Oliver Oken— still.

I talked about how her older brother Tyler was too old to be an altar boy now that he was fourteen.

Jackson didn't listen, but he didn't tell me to shut up, either.

Mama didn't come out of that bathroom until long after I fell asleep on Jackson's bed— where I would sleep fully clothed, shoes and all, for that whole year, every time I heard Mama crying in the bathroom.

On the hot, hazy last day of school, I sat with Lilly on her porch, slurping red popsicle drips from my knuckles while trying to balance the popsicle.

"Do you think Oliver will come around this summer?"

"He lives four doors away. Probably," I said, inspecting the tip of my popsicle where a gnat landed.

"I hope he does…Lauren told me he told Ben he thought I was cute. I'll bet he wants to see my new bike."

"Yeah, probably," I said absently, while Lilly licked her popsicle stick clean. I didn't understand why Lilly never shut up about Oliver Oken.

He went to the private school and was two grades ahead of us and I just… couldn't see what Lilly liked about him.

"Lilly?"

"Huh?"

"Why do you like him so much?"

"He's… well… he's nice. And he has the prettiest eyes I've ever seen. And he doesn't lift up anyone's skirt at the park— he's a nice boy."

Mrs. Truscott stepped out and ran a hand over the back of her neck, and it made her short dark hair stick to the sides of her neck.

"It's hot out here, girls," she said, and handed us each a tumbler of iced tea, which I couldn't stand— but Lilly's mother only let her have soda on special occasions.

Mrs. Truscott was always going on and on about nice girls and nice boys, and telling Lilly what was expected of nice young ladies.

It was no wonder Lilly liked Oliver Oken.

"I should go… dinner and all," I said, putting my tumbler down on the cobblestone porch.

"Okay. Come over tomorrow," Lilly said and I pushed off the steps to walk the two blocks back to my house.

I remember running my hand along green, prickly shrubs and groaning at the prospect of meatloaf for dinner.

I thought about Oliver Oken and I thought about my brother Jackson and his friend Nick Jonas. They spit on my front porch and played baseball with no shoes on.

I wondered if Mrs. Truscott thought they were nice boys.

I flung the screen door open and called for Mama.

But she wasn't in our yellow kitchen.

Ms. Katie was there instead, near our kitchen counter, holding two mugs of coffee.

I knew a handful of things about Ms. Katie: she grew pink begonias and kept chicken wire around them and got mad if your Frisbee landed in them; her husband Mr. Smtih died from a heart attack two years ago, she had a big butt and when Mama had to have her appendix out she made us casseroles and came to cook my breakfast for that week— and she refused to make grilled cheese for breakfast.

I didn't like her.

"Oh, Billy Ray," she said, but she was looking at me.

My head turned to Dad, who shouldn't have been home from work yet.

He was sitting at the kitchen table and his uniform looked wrinkly and he looked _old_.

He had one hand in his pocket and in his other hand was a piece of Mama's expensive light blue stationary.

"Where's Mama?" I asked, but a tiny part of me already knew, I think.

Mama had left.

Two weeks after Mama had left, I lay in Jackson's bed, wide awake, waiting.

She'd come back.

Mama's can't just leave their kids. It's simply not how it's done.

"Quit wiggling around," Jackson hissed at my feet.

"I can't."

"Then go to your own damn bed."

"When she comes back, I will," I whispered…just to get some kind of reaction. I desperately wanted to know Jackson's take on Mama leaving—I wanted him to tell me to not be stupid—of course Mama would be back… because no one had said that to me yet.

No one said Mama would be back.

My chest hurt and my throat hurt and what would we do without Mama? Did Dad even know how to make grilled cheese?

Who would wash my clothes and go to the grocery store and set my hair in big curlers and make my Halloween costumes?

Who would be there in the mornings smiling and waiting for my hug? Or paint my toenails red? Or smell like gardenia and who would stay up late finishing my dioramas and make my dentists appointments?

Mama does those things.

I trembled and ached in the bed and at the foot Emmett was frozen. My feet kicked at his head but he didn't move and my crying got louder and I was twisted in his plaid blue and green sheets that Mama bought from Macy's.

I wanted her.

I missed her,so bad that it scared me, that it panicked me until I choked and threw up all over my plaid-covered lap.

"Shit. Miley? Dad!" Jackson called and scrambled off the bed and out the door.

I shook and swiped at the vomit dribble on my chin. The smell of puke was warm and strong, and it made me want to puke again.

I looked down and my tears dripped into chunks of spaghetti and bits of salad… and if Mama were here, she'd get me a fresh nightgown and a fresh pillow case and a fresh glass of water and make me a bed on the couch.

But instead my dad walked in wearing his grey sweatpants and he didn't smell like cold cream, like Mama does after nine o'clock every night, with Jackson scowling behind him.

"I want Mama," I said, defiant and sad.

Jackson held his nose and glared at me.

"She's not here, Miley," my dad said kind of quietly and grainy. He pulled the sheet off of me, and he looked kind of green and like he was grossed out.

Mama never looked like that when I was sick.

"You okay? Feeling sick?" he asked and he put his calloused hand on my forehead and shrugged. "Why don't you, uh, change your pajamas—"

"I want Mama," I said, hiccupping harshly.

"You can go sleep back in your own bed—"

"Where am I gonna sleep?" Jackson huffed.

"I want Mama," I said, louder this time, because where was she?

"Jackson, take these sheets off the bed, Miley go to your own bed—"

"There's puke in her hair," Jackson pointed, disgusted.

"I. Want. Mama."

"Hell," Dad mumbled, and used a clean part of sheet to swipe at my hair.

"She's gonna stink," Jackson said.

"I want Mama."

"I know Miley—"

"I want Mama," I shrieked out loud and fierce.

"Okay, Miley, let's get this cleaned up and—"

"I want Mama!"

"Me too!" Dad shouted back in my face loud and low then he dropped the sheet and I froze.

He stood straight up and rubbed his hands over his face, over his scratchy jaw.

Jackson stepped between Dad and the bed and pulled the sheets off of me slowly. I got up with shaky legs and went down the dim hall to the bathroom, all alone and smelling like sour throw up.

I got in the shower and combed my hair, from the ends up, just like Mama had taught me.

I walked back to my room, stepping over the pile of sheets Jackson had left in the hallway and my Dad was at my door.

He looked saggy, leaning, like my door was the only thing in the world that could hold him up.

"Miles. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have yelled like that… it's.." he went on absently, rubbing the back of his neck roughly. "Look, kiddo… we're all gonna be just fine… we just, we'll have to work together…"

"You should have been nicer to Mama," I whispered, reaching for my doorknob.

Because maybe if we would have "worked together" before, she'd be here.

Maybe he _should_ understand.

My dad stared straight ahead and blinked once before I slipped into my room.

I woke up the next morning after Dad had already left for work and Ms. Katie was in the kitchen, making not grilled cheese.

I went to Lilly's house, where there was still a mother and clean sheets and nothing had changed.

Or so I thought.

I sat on Lilly's pink bed and flipped through her mother's old _Woman's Day_ magazines, finding tips on the perfect at-home manicure and how to spice up your date night.

Lilly sat at her purple and white vanity and smeared sparkly lip gloss all over her lips.

"Do you think Oliver will kiss me this summer?"

"Sure," I shrugged, already bored with this topic.

"When I get boobs, he'll kiss me for sure," Lilly said, sticking her chest out and puckering her lips.

"Good luck," I mumbled.

"I heard Danny thinks you're cute," Lilly said.

"Gross."

"Well. You should maybe just see if you like him. I mean, your crush on Nick Jonas is—"

"I do not have a crush on Nick Jonas," I said, and my face burned and I was suddenly angry for no reason.

"Yes, you do. You get all red whenever he's around… but Miley. My mom says he probably isn't a nice boy. He smokes cigarettes and everyone knows how he is with girls and stuff—"

"He isn't like that. He's always with Jackson, and all they do is play baseball and—"

"Okay," Lilly said quietly.

She gave up way too easily.

"What's your problem, Lilly?"

Lilly pursed her lips then sighed.

"My mother said not to upset you… because your mom left and things must be hard for you right now."

"My Mama is coming back."

Lilly didn't say anything.

"She is, Lilly. You and your mom don't know anything," I said, and got up and walked out.

That evening I stood at the edge of our lawn, pretending to be the catcher while Nick pitched the ball to Jackson, who had run inside for something to drink.

Nick tossed the ball in the air and caught it and I stared at his back and willed him to say something to me.

"Sucks about your mom," he finally said at the same moment he tossed the ball high above his head.

"Yeah," I said when he caught it in his mitt. "But… she's coming back."

"Oh," Nick said, and he took the mitt off and shook out his hand.

"Or maybe not," I whispered, for the first time, out loud.

"Yeah, well…either way, it sucks," he said, and then he looked over his shoulder at me and shrugged.

"Why would she leave? Is she a bad mother?" I asked.

Because those questions had been on my mind lately, and for whatever reason, Nick was the only one I felt like asking.

"Nah. I dunno. Maybe she had reasons. People usually do," he said.

"What reasons?"

"Shoot… I don't know."

"Should I hate her?" I whispered.

"If I were you…" Nick said, putting the mitt back on his hand, "I'd try very hard not to."

"Nick?"

"Huh?"

"I don't think she's ever coming back."


	2. Chapter 2

The June I turned sixteen, the only things I was sure of were the heat, Nick Jonas, Jim Morrison and the heat.

"They found that little boy behind Rico's farm. Say he was naked."

"Miley Stewart! Don't say that!" Lilly said and plunked her Coca-Cola bottle down on her plastic pink and white vanity and resumed frosting her lips.

"It's true. Not a lick of clothing on that kid—"

Lilly clapped her hands over her ears and ducked her long blonde locks touched her thighs.

"That's not true," she said. "We prayed for him in church last Sunday and Mama says that—"

"Your mama also says only prostitutes wear red and babies come from marriage," I said flatly.

"Just don't talk about it. It creeps me out," Lilly said, pursing her lips at her own reflection.

"He ran away is all, Lilly. Nobody would have snatched him up if he wasn't up to no good."

"But still. Poor kid."

"Yeah."

I got up from Lilly's pink bed and pulled aside her pink and white gingham curtains to look down and out of the window, and I could actually see the haze of heat on the green and brown grass below.

"Oliver down there?" Lilly asked.

"No, Lilly, your virtue is safe," I sighed.

"Hardly. I had to go to confession on Wednesday _and_ Thursday this week."

"Heavens Lilly," I mocked. "What would your mama say?"

"Probably that I should wear red," Lilly giggled and started to work on her eye shadow.

"Your mother represses you," I said.

"Nah, she just gets a little worried is all. That's normal stuff for mothers to do—sorry."

I leaned my forehead against the warm glass and tapped my finger on the pane.

"It's okay, Lilly. Daddy does just fine."

"I know that. But still. Nothing like having your mother around—"

"Well. Kimberly wasn't exactly baking cookies and hosting bridge parties like your Mama."

Kimberly was busy crying in the bathroom and drinking cooking sherry and sometimes mouthwash— when Billy Ray emptied everything else down the kitchen sink.

"Yeah, well, if it makes you feel any better, my mother would love to mother you," Lilly said.

I groaned and snapped my gum.

Mrs. Truscott came to my house with a plastic belt and a box of Kotex two years ago when I told Lilly I started my period. She insisted on taking me bra shopping three days later, and when I refused, Daddy gratefully handed her a wad of cash and she came back two hours later with four white cotton bras— which was disappointing as I'd fancied myself a black lace kind of girl.

Mama would have bought me black lace.

And then there was the time six months ago when Mrs. Truscott called Daddy to report she'd seen me in Nick Jonas' car. The same day she brought over a tuna casserole and told me that boys spread seed but can't be blamed for it and it was my duty as a good girl to see that the seed didn't spread to me until I'd been married in a church.

My older brother Jackson was decidedly insulted by that.

"You seein' Nick tonight?" Lilly asked, and she didn't even look at me.

She picked her cuticle instead.

"Yeah. I think."

I hope.

"Oh, well… maybe Oliver and I will see you out or something. If you two ever come up for air, anyway."

"I'll wear red," I smiled, and carefully slid _Strange Days_ back into the album sleeve.

"Hey, Miley?"

"Huh?"

"Oliver says if I take an aspirin before, you know, that I won't get pregnant. Do you think he's right?"

I laughed and walked out of Lilly's pink and white room.

Tyler Truscott, Lilly's older brother, was standing in the driveway, wiping his motorcycle down with an old diaper in one hand.

He got the motorcycle when he came home from the war last year; it was a gift from Mr. and Mrs. Truscott. They bought it months before he came home, to surprise him.

The surprise was on them, though, because Tyler came home with only one arm.

He used to light fireworks on the Fourth of July, right in the middle of the street every year since I could remember; sometimes he'd take us to The Scoop in the Truscott station wagon and buy me and Lilly sundaes. He used to help all the families down the street bring in their Christmas trees and shovel snow for Katie Smith.

But Tyler doesn't do much of anything anymore.

Lilly told me her dad and Tyler got into a fight about alcohol a few weeks back, and eventually Mrs. Truscott started to cry so they stopped fighting.

But Tyler doesn't even bother to hide his bottles under the couch anymore.

I suppose no one can really blame him.

I flung the screen door open and like always, it was too loose. Daddy told Jackson to fix it weeks ago, but he didn't and Daddy didn't notice.

Then again, Daddy doesn't notice much anymore.

Nick and Jackson were hovering around the open fridge.

"No dinner?" I asked, kicking off my flip flops.

"Oh, the duck is roasting," Jackson said, then slammed the avocado door shut. I sneered at him, even though I knew there wouldn't be dinner.

Daddy used to pay Katie Smith to cook for us three days a week. Fridays weren't one of the three days.

The suspicious part was- Daddy stopped paying Katie months ago but she kept making the food— I wasn't fond of the whole situation.

"Make a sandwich," Jackson said, and tossed a half loaf of bread on the counter.

"I'm tired of sandwiches."

"Quit crying just make a damn sandwich," Jackson said, and the piece of Wonder Bread practically fit in his palm.

Without a word, Nick took out four slices of bread and laid them on the counter while Jackson clumsily slapped baloney on his own bread.

I stared at the dirt under Nick's fingernails and contemplated how it looked against the white bread. I wondered if that's what his hands looked like when they were on me.

I wouldn't know.

Nick only touched me in the dark when no one could see.

"Does your mom make dinner?" I asked Nick.

"Sure," he said, not looking up from the bread.

Jackson rolled his eyes and put the mayonnaise away.

"Does she make like, meatloaf and pot roast and stuff?" I asked.

"Sometimes," Nick said, and his head sort of tipped up and so did the corner of his mouth and I smiled back at him.

Jackson crushed the slices of his bread together and took a huge bite.

The slices of bread on the sandwiches Nick made were perfectly lined up. He probably learned that from his mother.

Once, when I was very young, Mama and I saw Mrs. Jonas at Macy's department store. She had shiny hair and clear, shiny lips and a simple diamond necklace on.

Mama called Mrs. Jonas classy, and I agreed.

Nick slid a sandwich across the counter to me and picked his own up.

"Thanks," I said, and he just kind of nodded and didn't move the hair from his eyes to see me.

"Come on, let's go see what Taylor and Selena are up to," Jackson said to Nick.

My smile dropped and Nick walked out the door with Jackson and his sandwich.

Lilly thinks Nick uses me.

And maybe he does.

But the truth is, since I was twelve, all I wanted was for Nick Jonas, my brother's best friend, to use me.

So, one night when I was fourteen and he was sixteen, he kissed me on the front porch when we were waiting for Jackson to come home. And I let him.

And I kept letting him.

And then I let him do other things, too, and I did things back to him.

Anyway, now I wasn't sure if he was using me or if I was using him or if we weren't using at all.

Do you use people you love?

Probably not.

But still, I wondered what Mrs. Truscott would say about all that.

I wondered what she would say about all those times I snuck downstairs at midnight to answer the phone at half a ring so no one would hear it when he called.

I wondered what she would say about boys with dirty fingernails and how she could possibly say the things he does with those fingers is a sin.

Because he can do things with those fingers.

I wonder what Mrs. Truscott would say about _all_ the things me and Nick do when he tells me he wants us to be alone.

Nick thinks Jackson would go batshit crazy if he knew. Nick says Jackson wouldn't understand and _he _doesn't really even understand… and maybe he's right.

But Jackson should understand.

Lauren Porter says Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez have sex behind Call's Whole Foods.

I wouldn't know if they do or if they don't, but sometimes I see Taylor Swift walk into Jackson's room with red lipstick on and walk out with no lipstick on.

And once I saw her tits when I walked into Jackson's room without knocking.

They were small and round with very pale pink nipples— they looked like nickels and I stared until Jackson threw a book at the door and told me to get out.

Taylor Swift doesn't say much of anything to me when I see her in school or at my house. She smells like cigarettes and Love's Baby Soft and she always looks like she's staring at something very far away.

The only time I actually hear her speak, it's through the walls in my house.

She laughs and sometimes tells Jackson to stop it, but then she always says it's okay.

Nick and I don't laugh like that when he comes through my window. I don't know why, but we just don't.

Two nights ago, he came in through my window and brought two pieces of cherry pie his mother made and he kissed me.

He must've known everyone else forgot.

It was my sixteenth birthday.


	3. Chapter 3

"Do you _do_ things with Selena Gomez? Behind Call's Whole Foods?" I asked Nick, while I poked the watery remnants of my red slush with a blue straw.

I leaned back in his car and worked the straw in and out of the lid, so it made an awful squeaky noise.

"God, Miles."

"Well. Do you?"

Nick reached forward and turned the radio up then used the back of his hand to rub at his scratchy jaw for a second before he responded.

"I don't want to talk about Selena Gomez," he mumbled.

"Okay. Jake Ryan asked me for the movies this weekend," I said, because Nick should care about this and maybe because I'd feel a lot better if he got jealous.

"You going?"

I worked the straw faster, until it was almost louder than the radio.

"Not if you don't want me to," I said then waited for him to tell me he doesn't want me to.

"You can go to a damn movie, Miley. You should go on a…date…or whatever."

"He'll ask me for a blowjob. He asks everyone he takes to the movies for a blowjob."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Don't you care?"

Nick tossed his cigarette out of his open window then spit in the same direction.

"Let's take you home," he said without even answering me at all.

He used one finger to turn the steering wheel and I slid the straw in the lid slowly, so it whined long and loud.

Nick slammed one hand on the cup, over my hand and I jumped.

"You're driving me _crazy_," he snapped. "Just…stop it."

"Sorry," I said, and turned my head to the left so he wouldn't see my chin trembling.

"You make me crazy," he mumbled again and we drove in silence until we were parked four houses down from my house, so no one would see me get out of his car.

I reached for the handle on the car door, but before I got out, I looked over my shoulder.

"Just so you know, Nick Jonas, sometime you make me crazy, too."

He kind of shook his head and I could I saw his shoulders kind of shake with slow, silent laughter, but I didn't see what was so funny.

That night I heard Taylor's laugh coming from Jackson's room and imagined her red lipstick smeared on her chin and wondered when I would be alone with Nick again.

The next morning I was at Lilly's house, sharing the tiny bench at her vanity while we both contemplated our pores in the mirror.

Tyler was still in the driveway, still buffing a motorcycle he'd never have the chance to ride and Mrs. Truscott was in the kitchen working on her Sunday School lesson plan for the next morning.

Janis Joplin was screaming softly from Lilly's record player—we weren't supposed to listen to 'rock and roll' in the Truscott house, so Lilly hid most of her records in sleeves that had Connie Francis on the front.

"It doesn't count if it's just the very tip, does it? Like, if it's just the part right before that big ridge, right?" Lilly asked, leaning back away from the mirror.

"Lilly. You better run to confession," I laughed.

Lilly clapped a hand over her mouth and giggled until her face turned bright red and her shoulders raised up to her ears.

"He said he loves me," she smiled, and she looked…thrilled.

"He did?" I asked, because…he did?

Lilly nodded and wrapped her arms around her waist and smiled so hard I could see even her teeth in the back of her mouth.

"I'm in love," she declared. "Me and Oliver are in love."

"Wow," was all I could say.

Because what do you say when the boy you love isn't put off by blow jobs and movies and doesn't make you laugh late at night in your bedroom.

"Look," Lilly said, and slid out the bottom drawer to her vanity. She rummaged underneath all of the lace handkerchiefs her grandmother made for her and produced a gaudy, gold ring with a sickeningly sweet pink gemstone on it.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Pink ice. Oliver gave it to me last night. When he told me he loves me. It's a promise ring…it means we'll be married one day. Probably right after I graduate from school. I want to buy one of those sweet little houses in Pine Grove and Oliver says we can."

"Lilly…that's…wow. Are you sure, I mean…"

Mrs. Truscott still picked the pulp out of Lilly's orange juice and made her dentist appointments.

"Of course I'm sure. You only get one true love, Miley. And Oliver is mine."

"Did you declare all of this before or after he put it in up to the ridge?" I grinned.

Lilly started in a fit of giggles and slid the pink ice on her finger, then held it up over our heads.

It was…well.

It was ugly.

But Lilly looked at it like it was the crown jewels or like it held all of her happiness right there, in that cloudy pink stone.

Nick would never pick out a pink ice ring.

Two nights later I was in Nick's car, parked by the old train tracks just outside of town. No one ever comes here, so I guess that's why we do.

"Oliver Oken told Lilly Truscott he loves her," I said to Nick.

He exhaled cigarette smoke out of his nose in jerky spurts then laughed loud and hard.

He used the back of the hand holding his half burned cigarette to press into his eyes, but still he laughed.

"That's funny?" I asked.

"That," he said, "is hysterical."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing, you just tell sweet Lilly to take care of herself."

"She doesn't have to. Oliver does," I spat back, suddenly angry at Nick and jealous of Lilly.

"Miley…what…never mind," he sighed, then he revved the engine and we pulled out and on to the main road, and he hadn't even kissed me yet.

When he pulled up four doors down from my house I got out and slammed the door and his tires squealed when he pulled away too fast.

Neither of us had actually said words, so was this a fight?

Because both of us knew what I'd been trying to get at, and he didn't give an inch, just like he never does.

I tiptoed into the kitchen, but that was unnecessary because Jackson and Taylor were there, staring at me.

"Where the hell have you been?" Jackson asked.

When we were younger, Jackson let me sleep in his bed, after Mama left. He would sleep on the floor and never say anything about it, but sometimes if I went in his room and he was already asleep, I'd crawl in right next to him. He used to pour me cereal in the mornings and make sure Daddy got Ivory soap for me at the grocery store, because it's the only kind that doesn't make my skin itch.

And he looked at me now the way he used to when he worried I didn't eat my apple at lunch or had nightmares about Mama.

"I was with Lilly," I lied.

"Bullshit. Lilly Truscott has to be in by ten."

"Well, I was—"

"Was that Jonas' car?"

Taylor Swift stared at me with nothing on her face and I suddenly wanted to ask her what pink ice means and if she really goes all the way behind Call's Whole Foods and if her best friend Selena Gomez really goes behind there with Nick Jonas.

"No. It wasn't Nick," I said, because if he knew it was Nick he'd ask questions and there was just nothing to tell. If he knew it was Nick he'd be mad at Nick and there's no real reason for Jackson to be mad at Nick.

Jackson squinted one eye and cocked his head and looked at me for a second before he figured out I was a liar.

Then he left Taylor's side and walked past me and out the front door.

"Jackson—" I started, but he was out the door.

Taylor Swift started for the door, to follow him, but the she kind of paused and looked over her shoulder at me.

"Hey. It's okay," she said, then she walked out, too, and I don't know how she knew, but I really needed to hear that just then.

Sometimes, I think, everyone just needs to hear that.


	4. Chapter 4

Lilly and I lay side by side on yellow towels in her back yard. Sweat pooled on our backs as we baked in the sun. Every summer it was always a race to see who could get the most tan, and this summer Lilly was sadly winning.

"So, listen, if I tell you something, promise you won't repeat it," Lilly said, turning her head toward me and shielding the sun with her pink iced hand.

"Promise," I said, not really too interested. I closed my eyes again and waited for the freezing spray from the sprinkler arcing on the lawn to hit my toes.

Lilly always had lame gossip. Last week she told me Mrs. Black, the public librarian was pilfering change from the overdue fine fund. When Lilly told me, her eyes got all wide like it was a huge scandal. Though for our town, I guess it was. The police had to go to her house to get the money back but she cried and said she'd spent it all on a chuck roast. The city dropped charges.

"Okay. Selena Gomez is in a hospital in Texas," Lilly blurted out, like this news was just busting her up inside.

"Why?" I asked, half sitting up.

"You'll never believe this."

"Get on with it," I sighed when Lilly made the sign of the cross, marking her forehead, chest and shoulders quickly with her fingertips.

"She has a horrible infection."

"That's not so bad."

"She had a…procedure. Like, a botched one. You know. They say she got tetanus from a rusty knife or something."

"What? Like an abor—"

"Shhh. Don't say that word!"

"A rusty knife? Come on, Lilly, that cannot possibly be true," I said, laying back down.

"It is," Lilly insisted. "Our prayer group prayed for her and everything. Her parents sent her to Texas and she won't be back. You'll see."

"Well," I said, still skeptical, "we'll see."

"Hey, Miley?"

"What?"

"They say it was Nick," Lilly whispered.

"They say what was Nick?"

"You know…the boy. Who got Selena Gomez in all that trouble. I just thought you should know."

"That…is not true. You're lying. You're lying because you don't like Nick."

I sat straight up and Lilly propped herself up on her elbows.

"I am not! I was just trying to be a good friend, you should know what kind of boy he is—my mother says—"

"You're such a liar! He wouldn't ever—"

"Everyone knows what he's like, Miley. Everyone knows what he does with girls and just last week Mrs. Call saw Nick and your brother leaving a _bar_in Port Angeles. One that has marijuana and—"

"You're so stupid, Lilly. You believe anything that anyone tells you. Let _me_ tell you something that's the truth. None of those people know Nick. Not like I do. So, just…be quiet," I ranted, but ended quietly.

Because while it was true I knew Nick, in and out in a way no one else did—there was a lot I didn't know. Like what him and Jackson did when they disappeared in Nick's Challenger or what he did after he hung up the phone with me or dropped me off four houses down from my house by ten o'clock on those nights we spent in the backseat of his car.

"I'm sorry, Miles," Lilly said quietly. "I was just trying to help."

"Well. Don't say things like that."

I lay back down and squeezed my eyes shut against the light and the impossible revelations I didn't want to know.

"So," Lilly said timidly, "I went to Harper's and bought Flowers, that Rolling Stones album, with all of the good songs on it? And then I had to buy Just For You by Neil Diamond, so I had a cover to hide the Stones album in. You know what my mother says about Mick Jagger. Anyway, Oliver paid for all of it, so…"

"So. I think I'm going to go to the movies with Jake Ryan tonight. He asked me," I said, and even as I was saying it, I didn't want it.

"Oh, Miley!" Lilly squealed and clapped her hands, "He's really cute! And I wouldn't worry about the whole…you know…blow job thing. He goes to my church and he's a really, really nice boy and—"

"It's just a movie," I mumbled, because it was just a movie. If Nick…if he does things behind Calls Whole Foods or if he…it was just a movie, and Nick didn't do any of those things Lilly said.

But still, when I left the Truscott's yard and yanked my t-shirt over my bathing suit I was still only _hoping_to God that Lilly was a liar.

Jake Ryan's car had cloth upholstery.

Nick's was leather.

The difference doesn't seem like it should be so huge, but it was. Jake smelled like his father's cologne, sugar cones and Wrigley's gum.

Nick smelled like beer and cigarettes and I missed him, hard right then, when I was sitting in Jake's car, and even harder when Jake's hands rubbed the front of my dress.

"Wait, Jake…"

"No," he groaned, "no more waiting, Miley."

His skin made my neck itch when he pressed against me and the smell of pine air freshener mixed with the heat made me feel sick.

"No," I said, when his lips went still on my neck. "I don't do this."

"Sure you do," he said, and his hand slid up the skirt of my dress.

"No, I don't," I said, and I grabbed his hand with mine over my dress.

Jake yanked his hand out and sat up.

"You let Nick Jonas do it to you," he said.

I sat up and my arm flung out and I smacked him in the ear, hard.

He swore at me and I straightened my skirt.

"I don't do anything with Nick Jonas," I said, probably because I was just so used to saying it.

"Michael saw you two by the railroad tracks a few weeks ago. I know what you do. Everyone knows what you do."

"I…am not like that."

"Beat feet, Princess," Jake said, and started the car.

"What?"

"Get out. Because you sure ain't putting out," he said.

"Screw off," I mumbled, and pushed open the passenger door.

He sped off and I kicked my shoes off and walked on the cool cement all the way to the penny candy store seven blocks over.

I bought two strings of licorice and a bottle of Coke and still had a dime for the payphone.

I planned to call Jackson for a ride.

I was going to call Jackson.

I dialed the Nick's house.

"Jonas residence."

Mrs. Denise Jonas answered on the third ring. Her voice was warm and polite and I wondered if she always answered like that.

"Hi. Um. This is Miley Stewart…"

"Can I help you, dear?"

"Oh. Yeah, is Nick there?"

"He is. Hang on one moment."

I strained to listen and heard whispering and shuffling. I pictured Denise in a fancy white kitchen making cocoa or tea and reading The Ladies Home Journal.

"Yeah."

"Nick. It's Miley."

"Yeah."

"Um. I went out with Jake."

There was a few seconds of silence, until I could hear Edward's breathing get heavier on the phone.

"He…uh…kicked me out of his car. Because I wouldn't, or whatever."

"Where are you?"

"O'Hare's Penny Candy."

"Just…don't move," he sighed.

He sounded very tired.

He sounded very reluctant.

Then the line went dead.

I hung up the phone to wait and sat on the curb to chew my licorice and think about Nick and Selena Gomez.

It couldn't be true. I couldn't think of a single reason why it couldn't be true other than…it just couldn't.

Nick's Challenger pulled up and I got in, because whatever did or didn't happen with Selena, Nick was always, always decent to _me._

I just had to figure out if the rest mattered or not.

Without looking at me or saying a word, Nick took off fast as soon as I slammed the car door shut.

"Thank you," I said.

He said nothing.

"Thank you," I said again louder.

"What else was I gonna do?" he shrugged back, still not looking at me.

At that point I decided not to push my luck and sang along with the radio, instead.

"Wouldn't it be nice if we were older? Then we wouldn't have to wait so loooong," I belted but Nick slammed his hand on the radio, shutting both me and the Beach Boys up.

"What's your itch?" I asked.

I wanted him to tell me.

Tell me about Selena Gomez and tell me it isn't true—because it couldn't be true—because if he could do something like that…I couldn't possibly still love him the way I do.

Instead he lit a cigarette and drove with one knee.

"Say something," I said, and leaned over to poke him in the side.

He turned to look at me and smiled, but not in an exactly friendly way.

The dim lights from the dashboard lit his face and I let out a short squeak.

Edward's left eye was swollen shut and purple, with a gross yellow spreading half way down his cheek.

"What _happened_?"

"I screw Jackson Stewart's sister. I'm a perverted bastard. Didn't you know?" he said flatly, and put his focus back on the road.

"He…Jackson didn't—"

"Oh. I assure you. He sure as shit did."

"But…we haven't even done _that_."

"No shit."

"Nick. I'm…I'm so sorry, I didn't think that—"

"What _did_ you think?" he asked, cutting me off, and I don't think I've ever heard Nick sound so angry.

"I'm just…sorry," I mumbled.

"Yeah. Well. Me too. I'm not…angry at _you_. I just…I never should have touched you in the first place-"

"Don't _say_ that—"

"What the hell do you want me to say? I mean, you're a kid—"

"No, I'm not."

"Or you were…and you're Jackson's kid sister. He was like…that kid was like my brother or some shit and I just—hell."

"Stop saying that! You did not. I'm not a kid. You of all people should know that—"

"Oh god. Just shut up now."

"You didn't say I was a kid two weeks ago when I put my mouth on your—"

Nick groaned and rolled his shoulders back.

"Jackson is right—"

"Jackson doesn't know shit, Nick. He doesn't!—"

"Miley. Please. Just…don't talk anymore right now. You…you're driving me fucking mad here, okay? Just. Be quiet for a little while."

"Let's be alone for a little while," I whispered, because that's what he says…when he wants us to do things.

"We are alone," he said.

"Let's be _alone_," I said.

Nick's fingers touched his swollen eye for a split second and his shoulders stiffened.

"Take me somewhere away. Take us both away. Just for a little while, and we can just pretend that…it's just us."

Because if he did that, then we could both pretend everything was how it should be and I could forget about Nick and Selena Gomez and that dead boy in the creek and Tyler Truscott's missing arm—and it would be just the two of us.

That's why people go away, isn't it?

To forget?

"Miley."

"Where do you think my Mama left to?" I blurted out.

And I didn't even see it coming.

But Nick knew everything, and when he didn't, he was pretty good at bullshitting. And suddenly, I just really, really needed to know where she was, so I asked him. I always went to Nick for things like that.

He took a long drag from his cigarette, and pulled the car on the shoulder of the road, but he didn't seemed surprised at all by my question.

I wanted to know what Mama would say about _all_of this. She missed so much and she didn't even know it. The last time Mama saw Tyler Truscott he had two arms and there were no rotting bodies in the creek and Nick came over to play baseball with Jackson, who was seven inches shorter then, and the last time she saw me I didn't like mushrooms in spaghetti, but now I do, and she doesn't even know that about me.

"God, Miley. I don't…where ever she left to, she's missing out on a hell of a lot, and that's all I really know."

"I think so, too," I whispered.

"I'll take you home."

"You know," I went on, "Jackson fucks Taylor in his bedroom and last year he stopped driving me to school. Daddy hasn't actually looked me in the eye since…I think since two nights after Mama left and I told him I thought it was his fault. Some little kid was dead in a creek and the whole police department can't find the guy who did it, Oliver Oken loves Lily and Jake Ryan kicked me out of his car because I wouldn't give him a blowjob and everything, _everything_ is wrong."

"Shit, Miley. Don't cry."

"You come in through my window and make me sandwiches and you're the only one who actually looks at me and knows me, but no one else knows that and it's horrible…so please. Be alone with me Nick. It's the only thing that's still okay."

Nick made a deep noise and slowly turned his head to me, all black and blue for me.

"I'm not some kind of savior, Miley. Not yours."

Of course he was, but I didn't tell him that.

"Please? Please. Please, Nicholas."

His chin ticked to the side and he bit the corner of his lip. He absolutely hated it when I used his first name. I'd only done it twice before.

"Lay down."

I lay back on the seat, ready for him to take me somewhere new and good and his hand went up my skirt.

Nick's eyes closed, but I kept mine open. I wanted to watch, I wanted to see the things he could do to me and I wanted to watch him take me to the place where it was just us.

"I'm going to burn in hell," he muttered and his warm hand went between my thighs.

"Tyler Truscott says The Doors are going to change the whole world," I said, because he shouldn't be thinking this is wrong or bad, this was the only thing that was _good._

"Tyler Truscott is batshit crazy," Nick muttered.

"Maybe."

My skirt flipped up over my stomach and Nick put his hands under my butt and lifted up. He leaned down and I spread my legs further apart, because I liked this part.

Nick had done this two other times to me and every time he did, he made these noises that made me feel like I was as sexy as the blonde girl in those Prell shampoo commercials.

He shifted my underwear to the side and I felt his mouth then. My head hit the window and he pushed his tongue inside of me, then outside, but further up, in this spot that made my elbows go tense and my legs go weak.

I melted into the seat and one leg slipped off the seat and my foot hit the floor of the car.

Nick put his finger inside of me and kept his mouth there, too and I made an embarrassing noise. His hand grabbed my knee and I put my hand on the top of his head. Then I felt two more fingers slide inside of me and shut my legs around his head.

"Ow!"

Nick jerked free and sat up to look at me. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"You're not ready."

"I am, I am-"

"No, you're not. You're crying about three fingers."

"It supposed to hurt the first time. That has nothing to do with being ready. I read in Daddy's Hustler magazine about this virgin who hurt really bad but then it felt really good, after like, two minutes."

Nick stared at me for three seconds before he started to laugh.

"You've got a lot to learn," he said.

"Teach me."

"Hell."

I sat up and pulled my skirt down.

"Isn't this what you do?" I asked.

Nick let his head flop on the headrest and put his finger to his eye again.

"What the hell does that mean?"

"You take Selena Gomez behind the Call's Whole Foods. Everyone knows what happened to her."

"What the hell do you know about Selena Gomez?"

"I know she's sick something awful…I know what she did…and I know it was yours."

Nick stared hard at me with one green eye and one swollen, purple eye for a very long time.

"You don't know shit," he finally said.

"They're praying for you at Lilly Truscott's church. Lilly thinks what the two of you did is—"

"Shut up, Miley. You have no idea what you're talking about."

I straightened myself up, then looked out the passenger side window, so he couldn't see me—but he wasn't looking at me at all anyway.

"Why did you do that?" I whispered.

"You shouldn't believe everything you hear."

"Do you even care? About Selena Gomez? They say she's really sick."

"'_They say, they say_'—you don't know anything for yourself, Miley. This whole damn town has opinions and prayers for shit they have no idea about…I'm not gonna sit here and talk to you about this."

"It could have been me," I said.

"It could never, _ever_ have been you," he replied, suddenly sharp.

"Why? Because you won't do that with me?"

He fumbled for a cigarette and let it dangle in his lips while he started the car engine.

"I wish you wouldn't have done that with Selena Gomez," I said.

Nick shook his head and my eyes burned for Selena and what she did and for Nick but mostly for myself…because I should've hated him, but I just _couldn't_.

"I hope you don't care about her," I said, in what might have been the most honest, awful thing I've ever admitted to anyone.

Nick said nothing and we sped away, very quiet, and very far apart from each other.


	5. Chapter 5

Nick didn't speak again until we pulled up to my house…and we actually pulled up at my house—not four houses down.

Then he proceeded to shock the hell out of me when he opened his door to get out.

"What the heck are you doing?" I asked.

He slammed the door and I quickly flung my own door open, and jumped out of the car, but still, Nick beat me to the front porch.

Before either of us could climb on to the stoop, the screen door flung open and Jackson came out and pointed his finger right in Nick's face.

Nick didn't step back or even flinch, even though Jackson's eyes blazed with a fire that almost made him unrecognizable.

"You sick son of a bitch," Jackson said and Nick jerked his chin up and glared at Jackson and I just stood there, watching them.

"Your kid sister called me for a ride. Jake kicked her out of his car because she…wouldn't. You oughta stop rubbing up on Swift and start looking out for your sister," Nick said and used the back of his hand to shove Jackson's finger out of his face.

"You been _looking out for her_? That's what you call it?"

"She needs someone, Jackson," Nick said, like I wasn't even there at all.

"Did you call Jonas for a ride home?" Jackson asked me.

"He's always there," I said simply.

"It's not the first time, either," Nick said then turned to go.

Jackson and I both watched Nick get back into his car and listened to the tires squeal when he took off.

"You have a problem with a guy, you come to me," Jackson said.

"I took care of it myself. I'm not a damn baby."

"Oh? But you're Nick's baby?" Jackson seethed.

"He's good to me," I said.

"He better fucking not be," Jackson said, then walked inside the house.

I stormed in after him and yanked the back of his shirt.

"What Nick and I do is none of your damn business!" I yelled and yanked hard on his shirt.

"Way wrong thing to say, Miles," Jackson said, and turned to face me.

"I know what you do with Taylor Swift. Why is it any different for me and Nick?"

"Because it is."

"You're being stupid, Jackson."

"You have no idea about Nick Jonas and what he's after."

"Last week he was your best friend! Is that all _you're_ after from Taylor?"

"Miley. You have no idea about guys and—"

"You're talking about sex."

Jackson's face turned purple.

"I know what he does, Nick. I know all about Selena Gomez and what he did to her—"

"Did he tell you that?"

"He didn't have to."

"Stay away from Nick Jonas."

"No," I shrugged. "Besides, he won't even have sex with me anyway."

"Miley!" Jackson thundered, "you shouldn't even _know_about shit like that."

Jackson put his hands on top of his head and breathed hard, then turned to walk away from me.

"Well. He won't," I called after him. "And I'm not a freaking nun, Jackson. I can know about sex and—"

I shut up when Jackson stopped walking and completely stilled. I watched the muscles in the backs of his arms tense and then he _exploded_.

"Miley…I can't…fucking _hell_, Mama!" he shouted and then his fist hit the wall, right next to my second grade school picture. The thud echoed in the air and I put my fists to my mouth and stared at him.

He turned around with wide eyes and his throat looked like it was straining, I could see his jugular vein, like a thick rope climbing his neck.

"If she was here right now," Jackson said, "I'd fucking _scream_at her for leaving us like this. And then I'd tell her to get lost again."

"Jackson—"

"If she was here right now, _none_of this shit would be my problem. She fucked us all over."

"Jackson, I'm sorry—"

"Just. Stay away from boys, Miley," Emmett sighed, then walked up the stairs and I stayed put right there, and cried into my fists.

Late that night, I walked into Jackson's room without knocking. And I knew it would be okay. Somehow, late at night, when everything was quiet, things were always okay with me and Jackson—no matter what.

He was smoking a joint, half leaning out of his open window into the sticky air.

"Katie Smith came by to water the plants yesterday," I said, trying to get us back on normal ground. "I don't think Daddy pays her to do that."

"I don't think so either," Jackson said quietly, then yawned and scratched at the hair at the back of his head.

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

He shook his head and stared out the window.

"The whole thing," he said slowly, "is just shit. You know?"

"Yeah," I said, and sat on his bed.

"I don't know what to tell you about shit like this, Miley. Maybe you should talk to Mrs. Truscott or Ms. Smith…or…hell. I don't know. I just know that someone oughta be giving you some kind of…advice or something, and fuck it, Miles. I'm _tired_. I don't know how to be a mother figure to a teenage girl."

"I don't have questions, Jackson. I know the mechanics of sex," I said to his back.

"I don't want to hear about that," he sighed.

"You didn't have to punch Nick. He's been really good to me. Better than anyone."

"I'll bet."

"He isn't _like_ that," I said, and I couldn't even help it when my voice got too loud.

"I know what Nick is like, Miley."

"Not the way I do."

"Oh, god. Shut up now."

"I didn't mean _like that."_

"Just be a good girl, Miley."

"Is Taylor a good girl?"

"Taylor Swift is seventeen and none of your business," Jackson said, and turned to look over his shoulder at me.

"I bet Taylor's older brother wouldn't feel that way."

"Watch it, Mile," Jackson said.

"I turned sixteen two weeks ago. You didn't notice."

I watched the color drain from his face before he turned around and rested both of his palms on the window sill. His dark head bowed between his shoulders and I looked away.

I'd never seen Jackson look so…old.

Or maybe really tired.

"Fuck, kid. I don't even know what to say."

"Don't say anything. I had a piece of pie with Nick. He's the only one who remembered…and that's okay. It wasn't like, a big deal…the point is, I turned sixteen. I'm not a kid."

"Daddy didn't give you a—"

"It's not about a damn card or a birthday cake, Jackson! I'm growing up! I'm older and I don't need you to hit boys or tell me who I should and should not spend time with—"

"Apparently, you do. Jake Ryan—"

"I called Nick and Nick came for me like I knew he would. I took care of it. Or he did. He always does."

"He's not supposed to be feeling up on my kid sister."

"Please. I started it. When I was like fourteen. And it isn't about that, it's not just about the touching stuff. I can't help it, and I don't think he can either. It just is what—"

"Get out."

"_What_?" I asked.

"I'm tired. Get out and tell your boyfriend to stay the hell away from me, too."

I went to my own room and resigned myself to the fact that it was just going to be one of those days where you don't ever stop crying.

I lay on my back and let the tears fall slow at first, then fast. They snaked down my temples and I felt them slide into my hair and make warm streaks down my cheeks that turned cold in seconds.

I cried harder when it occurred to me that it was the first time I went to Jackson's room at night and things weren't okay by the time I walked out.

Everything was changing, somehow, everything was turning and evolving.

And I cried the hardest when I thought about what Jackson would be like as a brother if Mama never left. He wouldn't have to worry so much or be such a tired asshole all the time.

I cried even harder when I realized I'd never know, because she _did_ leave and Jacksons was right.

She screwed us all over.


	6. Chapter 6

Jackson hadn't talked to me in a week.

Daddy didn't notice anything amiss, but that was probably because Katie Smith stopped charging him ten dollars a week to do our laundry. I noticed she started mixing her own clothes in with ours and she hung her ironed skirts right next to Daddy's flannels on the line in the basement.

On one awful Wednesday evening she bought a stew over, which was normal but the difference was she stayed and ate it with us.

Katie Smith sat in Mama's chair at the table and buttered a roll for all of us.

"Don't you have to feed your dogs?" I asked, when she offered me a linen napkin.

We always used paper napkins.

We didn't even own any linen napkins.

"Miley! Don't be rude," Daddy said.

"Oh, the dogs are fine. I fed them before I left," Katie shrugged, not insulted in the least.

Jackson shoveled stew into his mouth and used his linen napkin and I didn't touch any of it.

When Jackson stood up to take his plate to the kitchen, Daddy told us both to clear the table.

I almost opened my mouth and asked him if he remembered that he used to pay Katie to do the dishes on Wednesdays, but that would probably be pointless anyway.

Jackson and I stepped around each other and didn't speak.

At the sink, Jackson scraped the plates and I wet the sponge and I wanted things to be okay with Jackson and me.

"Daddy probably fucks Katie," I said.

"Probably," Jackson sighed.

"I wonder what Mama would say. She didn't like Katie Smith."

"If Mama cared who Daddy fucked, she'd be here doing these dishes right now," Jackson said.

I bit my lips together and blinked as I squeezed suds from the sponge.

"It's true," Jackson said. "She didn't give a damn about Daddy, me or you. She just—"

"Shut up Jackson!" I shouted and my flat palms hit the water, soaking the front of both Jackson's and my shirts.

"No, Miley. You walk around here rude to Katie, who actually _does_stick around, and you act like Daddy shouldn't have a life—"

"He was _married_—"

"And she left! Because she wanted to! Because she didn't want _any_ of this!" Jackson shouted back, much deeper and louder than my own voice.

"You don't know what she was thinking, Jackson, you don't know what—"

"No one knows! Because she was crazy—she locked herself in bathrooms and cried all the damn time. She was a drunk—"

"Stop it," I screeched, "All of you—you and Daddy are—god, sometimes, I swear to God, I can understand why she left. Sometimes I think I'd be better off if I ran away from all of you, too."

And it wasn't even true.

The plate Jackson was holding hit the wall and before the shards of glass even hit the floor his hands were on my shoulders, wet and holding too tight.

"Don't you ever say that, Miley."

"Well, I would!"

But really, I never would.

"Don't. Say. That."

"I never asked you to be a parent to me, Jackson. I never asked to be your _burden_—"

"I never asked for it either!" he shouted back, leaning down and getting in my face.

"Lemme go," I screeched and kicked his shin.

Then just like that, he took his hands off of my shoulders and walked away.

I stood there, wet and shaking. All of my joints were burning and too loose, adrenaline rolled through me in a sick way, because we had never, ever said things like that.

We never actually said things that needed to be said.

Most of me wanted to go to Jackson, and tell him I didn't mean it and that I was sorry and that I knew he was just…trying his hardest.

But instead I leaned down to pick up the glass at my feet and cut my finger.

I stayed squatted on the floor and stuck my bleeding finger in my mouth and stayed very still.

"Your dad said I could come on in, he told me to tell you to be more careful with the dishes—oh."

I looked up to see Taylor, standing in my kitchen with her red lips and blonde, stringy hair.

"What happened?" she asked.

"I cut it," I said, holding my finger up.

Taylor and her red lips walked over to me and when I stood, she grabbed my wrist with cool fingers and turned the cold tap on, then stuck my hand underneath it.

"I don't think you need a band aid," she said. "Just keep it under there for a minute."

I nodded and swallowed hard.

She moved and I looked over my shoulder at her and watched her carefully pick up the broken glass and throw it piece by piece into the trash can.

"Thank you," I said quietly.

"You been crying?"

"It's stupid," I said, suddenly feeling very small and very young next to Taylor Swift.

"It usually is," she sighed. "You should take a broom to the floor. I couldn't get the smaller pieces."

"I'm really sorry about your friend. Selena."

Taylor shut off the tap.

"Jackson upstairs?" she asked.

"Yeah. And really. Thank you."

She kind of nodded then walked away, and she didn't even look back once.

Later, after I'd cleaned up the kitchen mess and after I heard Taylor Swift give one last throaty laugh and leave Jackson's room, I held my breath and walked downstairs and to the living room and picked up the phone.

I looked at the old, wooden clock on the wall.

Midnight.

He'd be up. He'd be the only one up at his house.

I hadn't talked to Nick since the night he drove me home after Jake kicked me out of his car. Probably because I didn't _want_ to know about Selena Gomez or anything that had to do with that whole thing.

I didn't _want_ to know any other side of Nick other than the one I loved, _the only one_ who just listened to me and made me feel okay.

And I needed that side of him right now—regardless of what else he was capable of, he was _the only one_ who ever got it.

He was the only one capable of not looking at me like I was a poor orphan when I talked about Mama.

Too much had happened and too much was said today, and I just needed someone…I needed _him._

The only one.

I bit too hard on my lip while I dialed, and when he answered on the second ring, instead of saying hello I let out a burst of air.

"You alright?" he asked.

"No."

"What happened?"

"Everything."

"Where you at?"

"Home."

"You want me there?"

"I need you here."

There was a long pause.

"Give me twenty minutes….and keep your window open."

"Okay."


	7. Chapter 7

Thanks so much for reading and reviewing! I love you all so much.

The key part of Nick's character in this story is he is tortured and torn because he does have feelings for Miley but it's forbidden. He hates himself for it.

This chapter is about to change everything, so keep reading to find out. And again, thanks for stickin with me:)

After I opened my window as wide as it would go, I crawled into bed and waited for Nick, and when my eyes started to close, I fought against sleep, because he said he was coming, and he always, always did what he said.

"Hey. Scoot over."

My eyelids dragged open and I could make out the faint, dark shadow of Nick's disheveled hair above me.

I rolled to my side and he lay down on the bed next to me, smelling like the humidity and cigarettes.

"Thanks for coming," I murmured then I felt his fingertips on my forehead. My eyes closed and the bed shifted, and I felt his heavy breathing against my eyelids.

I smelled him, right under his jaw and snuggled down into the covers and closer to him.

"Tell me it's okay to kind of hate her," I whispered and edged lower down until I could feel his chin at the top of my head.

We fit together perfectly when I did that.

"It's okay."

I nodded and pushed my face into Nick's chest.

"Jackson is such an asshole," I mumbled.

"Nah, Miley. He's just…it's like he's got the weight of the whole world on his shoulders, ya know?"

"No."

"Don't…blame him. He's just trying to look out for you. He's trying to do too much for a kid his age…so you don't have to."

"He's a jerk," I said into Nick's shirt.

"Sometimes. But when your mom left, it's like she took his whole…it's like he couldn't just be a kid anymore. And he never wanted you to feel like that."

"You think?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"Is that why you keep all those things we do quiet? So Jackson doesn't worry?"

"Jackson is- look. Jackson has a lot of shit to deal with. You know, Miley, I've been coming around here forever, and when your mom left—I just saw him take on a lot of shit. He doesn't need any more."

"Yeah, but you're not shit," I said.

The bed shook softly with his low, quiet laugh and he kind of pulled softly at the back of my hair, so I'd unbury my face from his shirt.

"You might be the only one who thinks that," he whispered.

"I _know_ that."

He kissed me, with dry, warm, closed lips—once for goodnight.

I flopped my leg over his hip and attacked his neck with my tongue.

"Nonono," he groaned and I pushed into him with my hips. "No Mi, not tonight…"

Nick never kissed me or touched me in other places when we were in my bed he always only talked or slept, even when I could see the bulge in his pants and I knew he wanted to do more than talk.

I reached down, in between his hips and mine and rubbed it with my hand like he likes me to do and he shivered like he does.

"Miley…no…_shit_…okay…"

He slipped his warm, chapped hands up to my jaw and tilted my face up and his mouth was open but kissing my throat and I pulled at his shirt, because that felt so good and I wanted him even closer.

Then the distinct sound of Jackson's bed springs creaked through the wall and Nick stopped.

He leaned his forehead into my throat and didn't make a sound.

"It's okay, he's sleeping," I whispered, and yanked on his shirt.

"It's not okay—"

"It is…he didn't wake up—"

"That doesn't make it okay…Jesus…"

"Nick—"

"Miley. Just…sleep now."

"But, Nick—"

"Miley`. Please. Don't say anything else…sometimes, when you talk, it's too easy to forget who you are."

"But…that _is_ who I am, when I'm talking to you…I'm not _just_ Jackson's kid sister—"

He made a deep, grainy noise and I tried to shift so I'd be on top of him. He grabbed my hips and put me flat on my back.

"Just…enough for tonight," he said, and he sounded so tired, I gave in and shut up.

I wanted Nick to keep talking, I wanted him to tell me more about all the things I didn't understand and more about all the things everyone kept quiet, but instead he rolled to his stomach and jammed his hands under his chest and fell asleep.

Then I wanted to wake him and ask what about _me_?

But I didn't because the truth was I had Nick whenever I needed him.

No matter what else he was up to our where his loyalties lied in the Stewart family, whenever I needed Nick, he was there…and I think, somewhere in him, he needed me, too.

In the dark, I listened to his breathing and I could make out the shape of his lips, and even though I couldn't see it, I knew that yellowing bruise was still around his eye.

He took that for me, he comes back to me still—nothing keeps Nick away from me, so I decided anything he did or didn't or won't do wouldn't keep me away, either.

So I didn't wake him again, instead I lay right by his side, and it didn't matter if we were touching or not or kissing or not—because when you love someone, just to be lying at their side is enough.

The next afternoon I was in Lilly's room, watching her stick cotton balls between her round, pink toes and inspecting my own chipping nail polish.

Lilly's toenails were always shiny and freshly painted. Mine were always chipped, even if I'd just painted them, they _always_ seemed to be chipped.

"Anyway," Lilly was saying, "I didn't think an underwire would make that big of a difference, but it really does."

She leaned forward and blew on her toes.

"Or it could be the three inches of padding," I said, nodding toward her cleavage.

"Oliver likes it," she smiled.

"I'm sure he does."

"His father is going to promote him to foreman at his factory in the fall. Oliver says we'll be able to afford a house in Pine Grove by the time I graduate. I want to be a full time home maker—"

"You sound like your mother," I said.

"Hardly. Oliver and I are going to do nothing but make love and I'm going to bake chocolate cake for dessert every night."

"Good luck with that, Lilly."

Lilly snapped her head up and her smile fell.

"What is your problem today? Couldn't you at least act a little supportive?" she asked.

No.

The truth was my problem was Lilly was making plans for her future and her white picket fence with the boy she loved and I couldn't even get Nick Jonas to commit to taking me to the damn movie theater.

She had a boy who gave her awful jewelry and promised to buy her houses and I had a boy I didn't really have at all—only when things were desperate, only when it counted most did I have Nick.

But maybe that wasn't enough anymore.

"Just because you're jealous of me and Oliver—"

"I am not jealous of you and Oliver Oken."

"You need to get over Nick Jonas. He doesn't love you. He's no good. Poor Selena—"

"Shut up, Lilly."

I was abruptly _angry_ and looking to hurt her feelings. The pit of my stomach burned and I suddenly needed to lash at something.

She looked like I just slapped her in the perky face when she realized I just told her to shut up. The pink iced hand went to her face and her mouth set in a thin little line.

"You don't know anything, Lilly," I said, getting to my feet. "You know how to bake chocolate cake and sew A-line dresses and follow Oliver around like a puppy, but that's _all_ you know."

"_I_ don't know anything? You're confused about everything Miley. My mother says you're so confused and you make bad decisions because your mother left—"

"Shut up—"

"My mother says you are misguided and up to no good because you don't have a good role model. We prayed about it and I felt like I was being led to be a good influence in your life…but now, Miley, I can see that just won't work," Lilly finished in a clipped tone and tapped the bottle of cotton candy pink polish on her palm.

"Does your mother know you do it with Oliver in his car?" I asked dryly.

Lilly turned bright red.

"Oliver and I are in love."

"Your mother wouldn't agree with that logic. I guess she's not such a great role model, either."

"You're not welcome here anymore, Miley. Please leave."

But me and my burning stomach and my trembling hands were already at her door, and before I put my hand on the brass knob, I took a deep breath and wondered when these long, hot days would ever stop turning the world upside down.

"Morrison tells the truth, Stewart kid. Always," Tyler called out at me when I passed him barefoot on the burning cement of the driveway with my chipped toenails. "You look like you need the truth."

I kept walking forward with rigid knees and my eyes couldn't really focus and the only thing I could think was why, why, _why_ was I always so alone?

Why did everything good seem to slip past me and grace everyone else?

Why couldn't me and Jackson be the way me and Jackson used to be?

Why couldn't Nick just talk to me and make out with me all in one day—wasn't that normal? Wasn't that the way it was done?

When did everything get so damn complicated and would it _ever_ just be easy again?

Why was Lilly such a naïve, princess know it all with a perfect boyfriend and a perfect mother?

Why did _mine_ leave?

My bare feet hit the pavement hard with every injustice in the whole world.

And when I finally made it home on raw feet with a swelling lump in the back of my throat, Katie Smith was sitting in Mama's seat at the kitchen table drinking a cup of coffee.

"Where have you been?" she asked, and her eyes looked puffier than normal and her hair wasn't perfectly combed like usual.

"You're not my Mama. I don't have to tell you—"

"Your brother had an accident."


	8. Chapter 8

**Thanks for all the reviews, and again thanks for sticking with me! A special shout out to soul and ****0o-ThisIsMe-o0 :)**

**Read on to see how everything unfolds—or rather, unravels for Miley.**

"Jackson?" I asked.

Like I had a brother to spare.

But.

Jackson doesn't _have_ accidents. Jackson is _strong_ and he _always_ knows what he's doing and Jackson doesn't mess up.

_Ever_.

Katie nodded and all the heat in me turned to ice.

Everything came flooding back, vivid and painful—seven years ago Katie Smith was in my kitchen and I had come in from Lilly's and Mama never came back.

And maybe if Katie kept her mouth shut and I didn't move a muscle, maybe Jackson would just walk in the door.

"Miley—"

"Where's Daddy?"

"He's at County, now Miley—"

"Please don't speak," I whispered.

Please don't say Jackson won't be back.

"Listen, Miley, we have to be quick," she said, getting up, and she shouldn't be moving. "Jackson was fixing a car, for a friend—"

"Shh—don't—" I sputtered out and my fingers pressed against my lips.

"The jack was broken. He didn't know that and—"

"Stop it."

"I'm supposed to drive you up there—"

"Is. Is he dead?" I asked, tipping my chin up and asking her if she was breaking the rest of my family.

Jackson.

"No. He's in surgery, or he was, and they don't know if—"

"He's alive? Right now?" I asked, and something inside of me flipped on.

Katie hesitated then nodded as she grabbed her car keys.

"Take me, please. To Jackson," I said quietly.

The smell of sick and bleach burned my nose and I timed my breaths to the click of Katie's pumps behind me.

I couldn't wait for her, I had things to say.

A big nurse with big sorry eyes told us Jackson was in room 207. I rode the elevator with Katie and she kept trying to touch me and talk to me and I kept moving away from her, just trying to get to Jackson.

The doors dinged open and I stepped out and Taylor Swift was there, with what must have been her parents hovering around her.

Her lips weren't red but her eyes were big and pink and there were black red splotches all over the front of her pink t-shirt.

"I didn't know it was broken, Miley. I swear, I didn't know," she said, slow and shocked when I walked past her.

Jackson's name was on a plaque just to the right of the door, but it didn't look the plaques he had his name on for baseball and football.

"One at a time," a passing nurse said, but I walked in anyway, because you can't put rules on this kind of thing.

I saw Daddy's slumped and wrinkled back. His shoulders looked frail and narrow and just past him, all I could see were huge lumps under a light blue blanket.

"Dad?"

Daddy turned around and I stumbled back a step.

I'd never seen him cry.

Not when he nearly sliced his thumb off fixing the lawn mower and not when Grandma Swan died and not even when Mama left, even when I thought he should be crying.

Daddy stared back at me and I looked at him until my mouth turned dry and my throat itched, then Daddy turned back to Jackson and kind of shifted over to the side and

Oh!

No.

"No…Jackson," I cried and shook my head, but I couldn't take my eyes off of him. My face twisted up and my stomach was so sick I had to press the back of my hand to my mouth and bite down to keep from gagging.

There was blood, black and crusted around his nose and there was a tube up his left nostril.

His lips were blue and his whole face was swollen.

Swollen and fat and distorted.

No one had combed his hair and he hadn't shaved since three mornings ago and they had his hands tucked under the blanket.

"I'm sorry," I yelped, muffled and shaky through my hand. "I didn't mean it!"

Daddy's chin fell to his chest and I pushed past him and scrambled to the side of the bed, to be closer to Jackson.

"Jackson, Jackson I didn't mean any of that, what I said the other day, about leaving? I didn't mean it. I didn't! You _know_it, too—"

"Miles, honey, he can't hear you—"

"Yes he does, he has to," I snapped.

"He can't. He's pumped full of—"

"I get a chance to say things this time. If he…leaves. I have things to say to him, first. I'm going to say them."

Daddy took a step back when I glared over my shoulder at him, then I turned back to Jackson, but let my eyes close this time.

I took a deep breath and started again.

"The birthday thing wasn't really a big deal. Really. I really wasn't upset by it. And you're right, I shouldn't bitch about eating too many sandwiches. There's nothing wrong with sandwiches. And even when I don't act like it, I always really_, really_ like telling people you're my older brother. That's stupid, but I do, and I want you to know that. I want you to know that…I know that you were just trying your very best and I'm really sorry that I didn't…or, if I made things hard for you. I'm sorry…and, it _was_ me who broke the needle on your record player, but you knew that, I guess…"

"Miles?" Daddy said, when my choking had cut me off.

"Will he die?" I asked.

"God, Miley…"

"We can't just…let him go like that, Daddy."

He put his hand on my shoulder and I jerked away because Daddy was _always_ just letting people go without putting up any kind of fight at all.

"He hasn't even fixed the door yet," I said to Daddy.

"Miley, maybe you oughtta go get a—"

"Fix it. Fix it this time, Daddy. Don't just let him go."

Billy Ray looked at me like he didn't even know who I was…and I felt the same way about me, too.

And then I walked out.

I had to—that guy didn't even look like Jackson. He wasn't sleeping on his stomach like Jackson does and he didn't snore like Jackson does and what else could I say to make him stay?

"Miley, Miley, I'm so sorry," Taylor was saying again but I didn't even look at her this time, I kept walking until I was running half way down the hall.

To Nick, who was there, leaning against the white wall with a yellow eye and his car keys dangling from his fingertips.

I ran into him full force and he caught me up in his arms like I needed him to and like I knew he would. His arms wrapped around my neck and my waist and he held me tighter than he ever had before.

The keys dug into my back and Nick smelled like sweat and fresh cut grass and his shirt was damp but none of that mattered.

I put my face in his neck and he let me cry, right there in that hallway, while Jackson lay half dead and not himself at all.

He held on to me for a long time and I held on just as tight because Jackson was hurt, Mama was gone, Lilly wears Oliver's pink ice and no one ever caught the guy who put that boy in the creek and Tyler Truscott is still waiting for The Doors to change the world.

In the meantime, the world was falling apart.


	9. Chapter 9

"He looks awful," I finally whispered into Nick's ear, still in the hospital hallway.

"C'mon. Let's get outta here," Nick said and put his lips on top of my head while he guided us down the hall and to the elevator doors.

I kept my eyes shut and he led while I heard Taylor crying and Katie telling Nick to take me home.

In the closed, stuffy elevator my head spun and I breathed too hard and when we dropped it felt like the earth had fallen out from under our feet.

"You gotta calm down, Miley," Nick said but I didn't feel like I was panicking.

"He's going to die," I said matter of factly and shaking my head. Nick let the back of his head hit against the elevator wall and I stood straighter. "He's going to die," I said again and Nick's eyes closed and my own words bit me and shocked me.

And _then_ I felt the panic.

"He's not…gonna die," Nick said.

"Jackson is all that's left. He can't leave me here! He can't—I don't even know what I would do or—"

"Miley, he's gonna be fine—"

"You can't know that, Nick! You cannot know that. He is all I have, he's—"

"You have me."

"Jackson," was all I could say.

"You'll always have me," Nick said.

I don't remember the drive to my house or the things I said and cried when Nick spoke, or if he spoke at all.

What I remember is Nick taking down the bottle of whiskey from the cabinet above the sink and watching him take a long drink from the bottle.

Then he handed me the bottle and I took a sip, too, and choked it down and let it burn up all of the ice inside of me.

"I don't even know what the hell happened," I said weakly after we drank from the bottle quietly for awhile.

Nick leaned against the kitchen counter and squinted one eye to peer down into the bottle of whiskey when he spoke.

"Taylor's car fell on him. Half fell on him, anyway. He was underneath it and the jack just…gave out."

I buckled forward and wretched while I held my stomach.

"He was doing her a favor," Nick said limply, and I heard the glug of whiskey when he tipped the bottle up to his mouth again.

"Couldn't someone else have fixed her damn car? Couldn't she have taken it in—"

"My guess is he wanted to fix it for her, Miley."

I slowly turned my head to look at Nick, who was staring straight ahead with glazed over eyes.

"Why?"

"Maybe he wanted to show off. Maybe he wanted to take care of her. Maybe he loves her."

"Jackson. Does _not_ love Taylor Swift," I said.

"Maybe not. But people want to be there for people they love," Nick said.

"You were there today, for Jackson," I said.

And I didn't say it, but he was there for me, too. He always was.

"Yeah."

"If he dies," I whispered, "I can't stay here. If he dies, I'll have nowhere to be. Daddy just…I'll have no one left, really."

"He won't die," Nick said, and plunked the bottle on the counter behind him.

"Don't say shit you don't know about, Nick."

"He had the best surgeon in the state. My father. He won't die."

"I didn't know that."

"Well. Now you do."

"Nick, if you would've seen him…I mean, his whole face was just—"

"A fucking car fell on his gut, Miley. He ain't gonna be the prettiest guy in the world for awhile."

An awful sound came out of me and Miley winced and turned his back to me.

"Sorry," he said. "I should go. I left the lawn mower out—"

"No, please don't…leave me alone here. Please."

"Miley, I don't—"

"Nick. Please. Everything is all wrong and I don't want to be all alone for it. Don't go."

His face kind of twisted in indecision for half a second, then he let out a short, sharp breath and grabbed the bottle of whiskey from the counter and walked past me and headed up the stairs.

I followed his slow, heavy steps on the stairs and down the hall all the way to my bedroom.

The heat was always worse upstairs and it was giving me a dull headache already.

I shut the door behind me, quietly, even though no one else was in the house, then I walked to Nick. He was standing in the middle of my room in soft, dirty jeans and a shirt so thin and worn, I knew it would feel feather soft on my fingers. I knew it would slip off of him easy and light and I knew everything underneath that shirt would feel strong and sure against me…the only thing that wouldn't slip away.

I took the bottle from his limp hand and he let me, too easily. I carefully set it on the floor, then I picked up his limp arms and I wrapped them around me, and held them in place, until I could feel him holding me tight enough.

"You say I have you. No matter what," I whispered and hoped it hid the cracking in my voice. He said I had him, he couldn't just…take that back.

His head kind of rolled to the side and a sound came out of his chest and maybe I shouldn't have been asking for that right then, but I did.

Because I needed him and he said I had him.

"Not for this. You don't—"

"I know you _know_ us, no matter how you act. I'm not asking for anything else right now…you can go behind Calls with Selena Gomez or whoever, but you promised _me_ you'd be here when I needed you. I need you. I need you to change this whole day for me. Turn it into something else, okay?"

"Listen to yourself, Miley, you don't even know what-you can't—Jackson is laying in a hospital bed and this is what you want? Miley. You're not even—"

My hand slapped into his side and then my fingers dug in, because I just needed him to listen to me, to what I was _saying_.

"I want _anything_ that isn't that. I want this whole day to mean something else—"

"You can't just run away from something like this. This won't go away—"

"I _don't run_! Just…for a little while, just for right now, I want us to be alone and I want everything else gone and Nick, you can do that for me, you can turn this whole day into not a whole nightmare—"

He abruptly took my chin in his calloused fingers and jerked it up.

"You can't go back," he said, staring down at me with some kind of intensity or determination I'd never seen him look at me before with. I tried to shake my face free from his grip, but he held on to my gaze with his eyes, driving his point home, making sure I understood.

"I wouldn't want to go back. I can't have another day like this—I can't have one more day be the worst day of my life. Give me something good to go with it."

"I don't have any rubbers," Nick said flatly.

"I do. On the last day of school Paul dared Jared to steal one from Town Drugs. He was too scared to bring it home so they stuffed it in my book bag."

I walked over to my top drawer and dug under my socks and underwear and the two cigarettes I stole from Nick months ago and found the condom, walked back over to him and put it in his sweaty hand.

Nick rolled his eyes and his shoulders sagged and I couldn't tell if he was happy to give in or just pissed off, but it didn't matter. I was going to take everything I needed from him as long as he'd let me.

"Okay?" I asked, just to make sure, just so I could hear him just once tell me yes.

He shook his head no, but then his grip was back on my chin but much looser and his fingers never left when he bent his head to kiss me. He ducked down into me and kissed me with his chapped lips. He was dry on my wet lips and one of us was too salty and I pulled back on him and he pushed us forward until he fell on top of me on the bed.

I scooted up the bed while he fumbled with his belt buckle then I pulled up my skirt and he pulled my underwear to my ankles.

I kicked them off and he lowered himself until his hands were on either side of me on my bed and I pulled down on his pants and we had never been so…methodical before. We never really worked toward a point or this goal before. It had always been just kissing, the kind that turns painful after so long—and just doing whatever would come next, without thinking about it or trying to get somewhere.

But this.

This was different.

He moved like he had to, and he didn't kiss me and touch me all over like he usually did.

Nick yanked my shirt to my chin and pulled the white cotton bra cups down and I closed my eyes hoped he didn't prefer black lace, too.

Finally, I felt his tongue slip into my mouth, dry and soft and I moved my lips for both of us, because he had stilled to slip a hand between us.

He moved his face from mine and hid it in my neck and I let my palms go flat on his back and pressed them into his soft t-shirt. It was softer than anything I owned and seemed to slip under my hands. I bunched the material in my fists to get a good grip on him.

His back curved, so his face pressed firmer into my neck and there was a gap of too far away between our chests but then he rubbed one finger on that spot that he does.

"You're sure?" he whispered.

I nodded and held on to all of that soft in my hands and for a second, I let myself pretend I could feel angel wings. Embarrassing even myself, I imagined him to be some sort of personal guardian, just for me—the only one who was ever, ever just always there and willing to fix it.

Whatever _it_ was.

I was ready for this.

I was ready to be someone new—I was ready for this whole day to change.

And then there was a lot of pressure between my legs, and it wasn't so bad, it wasn't all of the painful hype I'd heard about.

My shoulders relaxed and I let out a breath into his shoulder and then he pushed forward, fast.

Shit!

"Ow—ow!" I yelped out and I slapped at his back—not to move him or make him stop, just to do something with the burning pain between my legs.

This. Was the hype I'd heard about.

Nick sighed and kind of groaned out, "Stop?"

"No?"

He stabbed at me again.

"Ow—"

"Shhh…" he uttered into my ear.

"It hurts!" I spat back into his hair.

His hands went to the backs of my knees and he kind of made me bend them more.

"Better?"

"Yeah," I lied.

He started moving again and I wrapped my legs tighter around him. You know how if you cut your finger, you squeeze it really tight and you don't know if that is taking care of the pain or not, but you do it anyway? I suppose it felt like that, but I had more reason to hold on tightly.

He made a bass like noise and kept moving and then I noticed he was sweating. I concentrated on what wasn't hidden of his face. Damp black hair curled up loose around his ear and I followed his hairline all the way down past his ear, where the hair changed from damp, thick and rich to scruffy dark stubble at his jaw.

When I was sure I'd always remember that, that the visual was locked in my memory, I closed my eyes and breathed in deep. He or I guess we, smelled like humidity and grass and cigarettes.

Nick sighed hard and one of his hands rubbed up on the side of my hip and it was really starting to feel more like a raw ache than a sharp one now.

"Are we almost done?"

Nick raised up on his hands and looked down at me, and his hair tickled my forehead.

Then he pushed off of the bed and slid out of me with just a little less pain than when he went in.

He rolled over and flung his arm over his eyes.

"I'm sorry," I said.

I pulled my skirt down and sat up and saw him, that arm still covering his eyes, and he was…grabbing at himself.

The limp piece of rubber was at his side and it smelled like tires squealing right there in my room.

I watched him while I pulled my bra up, moving his hand up and down and saw how sometimes his thumb ran over the very tip and then I got angry.

He was always doing this.

He was always going off and leaving me and all I ever wanted for him was to be always near me. And he knew that. He knew he helped me and he knew I depended on him and still. He never gave enough.

But he always gave some.

And that _had_ to mean something.

"Why do you do this?" I asked, and the words were harder than I expected them to be, but I was proud of that.

His hand froze for half a second before he stopped all together and raised his hips, then pulled his pants up.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled. "It's my fault. I knew you weren't—"

"_I was ready_!"

"No. You're looking for all the wrong things. You don't know what's good for you and I know better," he said, and sat up. He hung his head and scratched at the wild hair on the crown of his head.

He stood up and used the hem of his shirt to wipe his face, then picked the bottle back up from the floor.

"Nick. You're being…_mean_. Why are you doing this? Why are you _being_ like this?" I asked.

"Haven't I told you yet, Miley? I'm not your fucking salvation. I'm not some kind of safe place for you to go—"

"You said I have you. You said I have you _always_! You said—"

"I said, I said, I said—you believe everything you hear. That's your problem, Miley."

"No. You don't lie to me. Ever," I said, because despite everything else that I was no longer sure of, I _knew _that much was true.

He sucked in his bottom lip for half a second then put the bottle to his lips.

"No," he said quietly into the bottle, "I don't."

He took a drink and I put my face in my hands.

"You're confusing me, Nick. Okay? You can't do this to me. Not today, not right now."

"I'll go."

My head snapped up and I flung myself from the bed and toward him.

"You don't get to go!" I said, and tugged at his arm.

Everyone was always leaving and he just couldn't. I wouldn't stand for it. "Everyone else leaves—you don't lie to me and you said you'd be there—_you don't get to leave_."

"Do I ever?" he actually _yelled_back at me. "Don't you sit here and act like I take off, because I'm _alway_s, always around for you. I'm here—even though it's all wrong."

"What is _with_ you? Why is _any_ of this wrong?"

"Jesus, Miley—you don't get it," he said, and he tried to shake me from his arm.

But he didn't try hard enough.

"_You_ don't get it, Nick. I'm sick of just hoping you'll come around and I'm sick of being dropped off four houses down and I'm sick of being some kind of puppy who follows you around and I've let _so much_ go because I _know_ you're the only one who—I just—why can't you just—why do you have to _be_ like this? Why can't you just—"

He wrapped his free hand around my wrist and bent his head, so he was looking at me directly in the eye, so we were on even ground.

"Do you have any idea," he asked, low and quiet, "what it's like to think about you the way I do? Do you know what it's like not to just be able to let you go?"

"What?"

"Do you know what it's like to walk out of here with Jackson and act like I never even saw you? You're driving me crazy all the fucking time—even when you're not in my car or up in my face. You make me feel like a traitor to Jackson and you're always making me feel like I'm the slimiest bastard in the world and _I can't even help it_. I don't stay away from you like I should because _I don't want to_. I give a shit about your feelings and I'm _always_ worried about you and I _always_ want to have my hands on you and all of that mixed together is just…it's _hell_."

I smiled, slow at first, and then I laughed in his distraught face.

He flinched then put one hand on my neck.

"Do you think this is _funny_? You don't know what it's like thinking that some punk kid is gonna come along and slide into my spot while I'm busy _not_ doing a good job at keeping my damn hands off of you?"

He shook me off from his arm and cracked his neck to one side.

"I don't know if I'm a pervert or everyone else is overprotective…you have no idea how hard it is to try to be so _careful_ with you—"

"Then don't! I'm not breakable—"

"Miley. Look. I've been around here forever, I see both sides to this whole shitty mess. I know Jackson sees you as a kid, I know he's just looking out for you the only way he knows how. But, _clearly,_" he said, rolling his eyes, "I see things he doesn't. So, it's…part of me wants you all sheltered and the other part of me just wants you, period. So, Miley, don't sit here and tell me _I'm_ confusing _you._ You've been confusing the hell outta me for years now."

I took a step back and put my hands on my hips.

"I think you love me."

"Jesus, Miley," Nick sighed.

"You don't have to say it, but I heard it. And I believe everything you say."

He stared at me for a second, with his mouth kind of half open and his eyes squinting in bemused disbelief.

I shrugged backed.

"You're going to get me into a shitload of trouble," he finally said.

"No. It's not…wrong, like you think. I've grown up. It's just…you're the only one who noticed."

He laughed dry and humorless while he rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand.

"I noticed," he said all dry and flat.

"If we can just—"

"There's just so much _shit_, Miley," he said, and he sounded tired all of the sudden, like I had finally, finally broke him.

I wanted him to kiss me then. I wanted him to tell me he was mine and then I would tell him that all that other stuff doesn't matter to me and I wanted him to tell me again that Jackson would be okay and that he knew I was right about us.

But then we heard the front door open downstairs, and I knew I wouldn't hear any of that.

Daddy and Katie were whispering in the kitchen and both of them shut up and stared when Nick and I walked in, rumpled and worn looking.

Daddy looked exhausted and old as he looked from me to Nick and back before he spoke.

"Exactly what I need right now. Go home, Jonas."

Nick lightly kicked my calf with the toe of his shoe and shuffled off, taking my answers and my reassurance with him.

I was left with Daddy and Katie and the reality of the day came crashing back down on my shoulders and my chest.

"How's Jackson?" I asked.

"We're going to talk about that," Daddy said, his thumb jerking behind him to the open door Nick just walked out of. The screen kind of swayed then stilled right in the middle of open and closed.

Because Jackson never fixed it.

"Just…Jackson?"

"He has extensive internal injuries," Daddy said stiffly.

"What does that mean?"

"It means…he's very, very sick."

"Cut the crap, Daddy. What does it mean?"

Daddy stared at me for too long, with glazed over eyes.

"It means he's fucked," Billy Ray said flatly, then rubbed a hand down his face and walked away.

I stood there in the dark kitchen with Katie Smith and for a brief second wondered how life could have ever led to these circumstances.

"Tell me," I said.

Katie leaned against the countertop and pursed her lips.

"His spleen ruptured. His pelvis is shattered. Lots of intestinal damage, they had to remove a lot of it…they won't know about spinal cord injuries until he wakes up…the good news is his heart is strong."

"Thank you," I said quietly.

"You have every right to know."

"I think…I'd like to be alone," I said, and headed for the open door.

"Miley. If there's anything you ever want to talk about…about Jackson or anything else, I'm here. And I'll always be honest with you."

"Are you going to marry Billy Ray?"

Katie raised her eyebrows, but she didn't look surprised.

"I don't know. He hasn't asked."

My lips pressed into a tight line and I nodded.

"Thank you, Katie," I said, and headed out to the porch to take in this surreal and awful day.


	10. Chapter 10

**Sorry for the delay, my sister accidentally deleted my story. But here's the newest chapter I wrote in the mean time, I hope ya'll still like it and stick with me. Thank you so much.**

I sat on the stoop and let my toes curl and scrape on the cool cement and waited to cry, but it never happened.

I talked to God or Mama, and I told whoever it was we really, really needed Jackson to be okay. Daddy, Nick, and I, we needed Jackson—and not just because he is _good_, even though he really, really is, but because he's so strong and he keeps us all together and we need that.

I thought about my downstairs region and all the things that happened to it today and squeezed my legs shut against the burn, but it wasn't a bad burn. It felt like a reminder of Nick, like he left something behind to get me through the night.

And then I thought about Nick and the things he said but didn't and I wondered what he was doing right now and this time I didn't wonder if he was thinking about me back—I knew he was.

I thought about Lily and Oliver and their house in Pine Grove and I figured her mother would probably sew her a wedding dress and I wondered what kind of suit a guy with one arm would wear to a wedding.

I thought about Selena Gomez laying sweaty in a hospital bed somewhere with no one there to hold her hand and I wondered if she put her hand on her stomach and missed her baby.

I wondered if Nick missed that baby or thought of it at all.

I hoped he didn't, because I didn't know what it would mean for me if he did—but more because I didn't like to think of Nick being sad or missing anything.

I wondered if he would do that to me, too. If he would send me to one of those doctors who do illegal things—but somehow I couldn't reconcile my Nick with and the Nick who would do something like that.

I thought about these strange summer days and wondered if this was growing up or falling apart and decided whatever it was, it can hurt like hell sometimes.

I yawned and thought of Jackson again, and I hoped he didn't know no one was there with him right now and then a dark sedan pulled up, right in front of our curb.

Taylor Swift got out and it took me a second to realize why she wasn't driving her white Thunderbird with T-tops.

No one ever got around to fixing it.

I looked up at the sky and I heard her coming closer.

"I didn't know where else to go," she said. "The hospital kicks you out at eleven."

"Home," I shrugged.

Then Taylor sat down right on our cement walkway, right in front of me and under me.

"I didn't know," she said. "That it was broken."

I finally let myself look at her, really, really look at her.

There will still splotches of black blood all over her pink shirt and I squinted my eyes and saw black underneath her fingernails.

My eyes closed and I turned my face from her and she started to cry softly.

"I'll never forgive myself. You don't have to, but…I just wanted you to know that I won't either."

"Did you ask him to fix your car?" I asked, and I was surprised at the calm in my voice.

"No…he just…went ahead and did it, but, you know…that's him," Taylor said, and her down turned mouth tried to smile. "He just wheeled underneath on those things mechanics use…you know…like a skateboard? And I was handing him things…you know, he would ask for a tool and I would hand them over…and each time he'd come out, from under the car…and I'd lean down and kiss him…like a stupid game or something—"

"He did that?" I cut in abruptly.

"Sure…he's funny, you know…how he's always playing around all the time…"

And then I did remember that.

I remember before Mama left, Jackson would chase me around the backyard with worms and once a gardener snake…and sometimes he'd hide in the hall closet and jump out to scare Daddy after his shift…and once, when he was almost twelve, he'd gotten taller than Mama already and he lifted her to the counter, so she could get a can down, and he left her there. She laughed and he stayed just out of her reach and danced around for a while and Mama just laughed and laughed and laughed.

And Jackson did used to be like that. It's just, I forgot about it—the way he used to make us laugh all the time.

"And then…I leaned down to kiss him and I had this stupid wrench in my hand…and it just…happened," Taylor said, her voice monotone and shocked sounding, like she could still see it but couldn't believe it. Her eyes went wide and she kept talking.

"There was this huge crash and then his eyes…Miley, I've never seen eyes that looked like that…and his mouth and his nose started bleeding everywhere and…oh…god…"

Then she leaned over and puked all over the cement and the weeds no one got around to edging.

Without thinking, I got up and walked over to her and sat down, right there next to her while she puked and cried and gagged. My hand reached out and I rubbed her back, because Jackson must really love her and it just felt like that's what I should do for her. Because if he was here, that's the kind of thing Jackson would do.

Taylor finally curled up, with her knees to her chest in a ball of long limbs, blonde stringy hair and black splotches.

I sat next to her and our arms touched and finally she leaned her cheek on her knees and looked at me.

"I was going marry him."

"What?"

"In six months. We were just going to…do it."

"You were?"

"I love him."

"He told you that? That he was going to marry you?"

Taylor nodded then wiped her nose on her jeaned knees.

"He was going to leave me?" I sputtered.

Taylor shook her head and took a deep breath.

"You are…his priority. Everything is Miley. Believe me. He told me…" She drew another deep breath, "he told me if we can't find a house close to the school we'd live with your Daddy, because Miley won't want to switch schools…and he won't leave you."

"He said that?"

"Yeah. I used to be really jealous of you. How sick is that?" Taylor asked.

"No. It's not."

"Jackson," she said, for no reason probably than just to say it.

"You'll still marry Jackson," I said, comforting someone else without even trying to. Giving away a part willingly, because if Taylor made Jackson happy—he should marry her.

Taylor shook beside me.

"I mean it. He'll be okay. Nick Jonas told me so and Nick doesn't lie. I know what you must think about him…because of your friend Selena and all that…but—"

"What?" Taylor asked, confused and red eyed.

"All that stuff…about Nick and Selena…"

"Why would I care about Nick Jonas?"

"Because he did that. And now Selena is sick and…"

"Selena isn't sick. She's perfectly healthy. The people around here are the sick ones. Out of wedlock pregnancy isn't a sickness."

"She didn't…Selena Gomez is still pregnant?"

"Of course she is. Her parents are catholic. She's just pregnant in Texas now, is all. Her parents want her to give up the kid for adoption, but Selena wants to keep it."

"But. He can't…wait, what? She is having that baby?" I sputtered, shocked that I felt kind of relieved but more devastated than anything else. "He can't…what's he _gonna do_?"

"He doesn't want any part of it," Taylor shrugged. "She can get payments or whatever…"

"I…fuck him," I spat, venomous and loud.

"He's an asshole," Taylor said dryly.

"Understatement," I blurted out, my heart pounding and my head spinning.

"Most boys are jerks, Miley. I'm sorry—"

"I just—he was just here and we just…oh, god, we just…"

"Wait. I thought you had a thing for Nick Jonas," Taylor said.

"How can he just—not if he just—"

"Miley?"

"What?"

"Selena is knocked up with Oliver Oken's kid."

"_What?_"

"Oliver knocked Selena up. Then he dumped her. He gave her this awful ring—"

"Pink. Ice."

"Yeah—that's it. Ugly. Isn't he humping your friend Lily Truscott now?"

"Yes."

"You should tell that girl to watch out."

It was quiet for a few minutes and somehow I found myself with my arm around Taylor Swift's back while she cried into her knees and I didn't feel alone just then, and not just because I was with Taylor…but because of Lilly and Oliver, Selena and Jackson and Nick and even Katie Smith. Our problems and questions twisted together and ran the same path sometimes…but they were no different than me. We were all enduring our _own_during these long, hot hazy summer days.


	11. Chapter 11

I walked downstairs very early the next morning, maybe even before the sun was up. I smelled coffee and the steam from Daddy's shower and I couldn't sleep anyway, so I figured I'd go down there and catch him before he left to see Jackson, so he would take me with him, too. And of course, I'd have to stare at him while he told me not to have Nick Jonas in my room.

Nicholas Jonas.

Who didn't knock up Selena Gomez. Who was actually inside of me last night. As I reached up for a bowl, I looked at my arms, then my fingers, like I expected not virgin limbs to look different. I mouthed the words 'I had sex' to myself.

'I had sex with Nick.'

'Nick and I had sex.'

I reached for the cereal and decided I didn't feel much like a different person…but. It was the words last night that made me feel different. It was those things he said that made me feel like everything was new and possible.

And it wasn't so much what we did up there in my room as much as it was what he told me that offered me the distraction and the distinction I needed.

I poured myself some cereal and sat down to a note scribbled on the back of a hardware store receipt that read:

Went to see Jackson. No boys in your room—Dad.

It occurred to me Daddy must've woken up very, very early to go see Jackson. He must've been worried and really wanted to be with him, and I don't know why, but that surprised me and made my chest hurt in a way that maybe wasn't hurt.

When I was rinsing out my bowl in the sink, trying not to think about what Jackson would look like today, I decided I'd ride my bike all the way up to County to see him or maybe I'd walk to the candy shop and wait by the bus stop for a bus.

But I didn't have to do any of that, because Nick's Challenger burned into our driveway before I even shut the tap off.

With wet hands I flung the screen door open and made it from the stoop to the lawn in two steps with bare feet.

I stood on the lawn, and my toes and ankles turned to itchy ice in the wet grass that no one had mowed in days, but the sun was getting stronger and keeping me mostly warm on top.

I crossed my arms over the ruffles across the chest of my nightgown—it was too small, Mrs. Truscott bought it for me for my thirteenth birthday and there was an old ketchup stain on the hem, but it was the only one I had and Nick had seen me in it many times before anyway.

He got out of the car with a half burned cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth and kicked back to shut the door.

"What?" he asked, squinting one eye in the stream of smoke before I even said anything.

"You're here."

"I thought you'd need a ride to County."

"Why didn't you tell me it wasn't you who got Selena in all that trouble? You knew I thought it was you and you didn't—"

"Hell."

"Tell me."

"It was a good lesson. Don't believe everything you hear," he said, then dropped the cigarette on my driveway and stepped on it with his worn tennis shoe.

"Bullshit," I shrugged.

Nick looked up and for a second I thought he might yell, but then one corner of his mouth turned up into a kind of smile and he looked up at the sky.

"You calling me out?" he asked.

"Yes."

He laughed, deep and quiet about something I didn't understand.

"What is funny?"

"It's just nice to see," he said, then leaned in and tapped my forehead with two fingers, "that you're finally starting to question shit."

I swatted his hand away and tried not to smile back.

"You smoke too much pot, you sound like a hippie. Now tell me why you really did that."

Nick took a step back and leaned against his car.

"I thought it would send you running after a nice boy," he said dryly. "I thought you'd lose your cool and go some place you're supposed to be. I was wrong. You're much harder to scare off than you seem to be."

"Maybe you're not that scary. Or maybe I just really knew all along you'd never do anything like that. You are a nice boy," I mocked. "I want us to talk about last night…and you know…"

"Jesus, Miley."

"Nick, I—"

"Mi. Can't that just be enough? Just for a little while? There's so much other shit going on…just…cool it. Just let it be for a second."

"Fine…but tell me you're not going anywhere."

He closed his eyes and rubbed his chin on the shoulder of his t-shirt, then let his chin drop to his chest.

"I'm not going anywhere."

I was feeling confident on the way to the hospital, and even on the ride in the elevator—I knew Jackson would be okay. I was feeling optimistic and even though he was being quiet, Nick was there with me and that alone made me feel better.

Still.

Right outside room 207, I hesitated.

Nick had his hand on the knob and he was just going to stroll right in there, like Jackson wasn't laying broken on the other side of that door.

And I knew Jackson would be okay—he had to be—but still. Something about seeing Jackson helpless and broken—it made me feel like the whole world had gone mad.

I reached out and yanked the back of Nick's shirt and he stopped and looked over his shoulder.

"I…need a drink."

"There's a fountain—"

"I want a Coke. I think I'll go down to the cafeteria for a second."

"Okay," Nick shrugged.

I turned to go, but then he called my name.

"Miley?"

"Huh?"

"He'll be okay. I promised. Remember?"

I nodded and watched Nick slip into the room and I noticed he left the door open a tiny bit for me, for whenever I was ready.

I stood there, wringing my hands and counting my breaths.

If it was me in there, Jackson would go in. But I'm always the broken one and that is our dynamic—this was all backwards. It was all wrong.

I leaned right there, against the wall and tried to figure out how accept the fact that it was my turn to be the stronger one.

And then I heard Nick.

"You look like shit…so, what happened hero? Didn't check the jack?...Swift's a mess, she came over last night, crying all over the place. I'm fucked up about it too I guess…your sister…"

It was quiet for a few minutes and I stopped breathing, listening hard, waiting for some kind of answer and I put my hands over my stomach, because I had never, ever actually heard Nick and Jackson talk about things that matter.

But right then, it occurred to me they must.

"I'm just gonna say this shit now and hope you can hear…or you can't…but this time it can't end up in a fucking sucker punch so…this is probably not what you want to hear right now and maybe I'm wrong for saying it right now but, I just after last night—it can't wait anymore…fuck it…she's a mess and Jack…I won't be one more thing that's confusing to her right now…I won't be the next thing that up and leaves on her because I don't want to. Maybe that ain't right, but I don't think so anymore. I ain't out to hurt the girl but that's all I ever do to her. It didn't start out the way you think, I mean I was never looking for a lay from her, she's not like Mallory or Vicky or—I never, shit, well—you asked how long it's been going on. About two years. And you were right, it was some sneaky underhanded shit and it made me feel like shit and it made her feel like shit. That was where I fucked up Jackson. Hiding it just confused her and it made me feel shitty. It made it seem wrong or like that shit is shameful, but it was never like that…"

It went quiet for a few seconds and I put my fingertips on the open door and saw Nick, at the foot of Jackson's bed. I saw Jackson's feet, two lumps under that blue blanket, and I couldn't make myself look further up.

Nick sighed heavily and I watched him absently mess with a roll of white medical tape. He swung it around one finger, then palmed it, then picked at the fraying edge, and when he started talking again, it was quieter, and he didn't look up from that damn roll of tape like I wanted him to.

"She says she's in love. She thinks I'm some kind of hero or some shit…and you think I'm out to get in her pants since I noticed she got tits-sorry…the truth is, neither of you are right, or more, you're both kind of right. She's more than what you see and I'm less than what she sees…Miley is a lot—she's more than what you give her credit for…and you've seen me do shitty things, but I've seen you pull some shit, too—look. You can trust me. She can trust me…" he stopped talking again and I watched him balance the tape on the edge of the metal bed without effort. He let one hand hover over it for a second then rolled his shoulders back before he picked up the damn tape again.

"You can kick my ass when you get outta here, but it won't change shit. She's gonna keep getting older and I'm gonna keep seeing her, and Jack…I think it's good. I won't hide it anymore, I'm not gonna be one more unsure thing for her and I'm not gonna be one more thing she's ashamed of…because I'm sure of her. She can handle her shit, hell, she can even take mine and Jackson, so much is wrong for her right now, but not me."

Then he finally lifted his head and that look on his face—I knew that look.

His mouth was set and his chin ticked a fraction to the left, his brow furrowed so his eyes looked dark and angry and that was the look on his face when he made his mind up. That was the look he made at me when he decided enough was enough and there was no changing his mind…only he wasn't looking at me.

He was looking at Jackson.

"I'm done being one more fucked up thing for Miley. She's not a kid. And I'm done acting like she is," he said, and with a sharp and sudden flick of his wrist the tape flew up in the air, and he caught it mid air in his fist.

"…god, I sound like a pussy…I'd kick my ass, too if I were you based on this conversation alone…anyway, Tucker finally got that hash he's been on about…Mrs. Truscott put a prayer card in our mail box sometime last night, I thought you'd think that shit was hilarious…Yankees lost last night, you owe me five bucks…"

I slid down the wall and listened and cried and wondered how the whole world could keep changing so much when Jackson was so still.

I was all overwhelmed and couldn't really figure out why I was crying, just that I was crying the kind of tears that won't stop…but then it hit me suddenly that too often really wonderful things are mixed in with really horrible things and you just have to take it all and hope good things keep coming, too, and that is the very hard and confusing part about…life.


	12. Chapter 12

I was still on cold tile floor in the hospital hallway when Nick finally came out.

He nudged my shin with his shoe and I looked up before I wiped the snot and tears from my face.

Nick looked down at me and his expression didn't change once. He never looked all concerned when I cried, he never looked at me like he felt bad for me…and I _really_ loved that about Nick.

I stood up probably too quickly and threw my arms around his waist and held on tight while I wiped my face on his shirt.

"I love you, too," I said.

"Oh god…"

"I listened. I heard what you said and you're right…"

Nick's hand went to the back of my head and he kind of scratched softly under my hair.

"He's going to wake up and kill me," he said and he laughed in a way that wasn't really like a laugh at all.

"No. He'll see. Just wait and see, Nick…he'll see."

Nick didn't say anything for a few seconds while he peeled me off of him.

"You gonna go in there or what?"

"Is it horrible…if I just can't today?"

"No."

"Jackson would go in…if it were me…"

"Miley. If you don't want to see all that, don't go in. He doesn't look much better today."

I felt my face crumple and a nurse with big white orthopedic shoes turned the corner and started to say something about being quiet in the hallway.

"We're going," Nick told her over my head. "C'mon…let's get out of here."

And he turned to go and then without a word Nick did something Nick had never done before. He reached out behind him and grabbed my hand. I shuffled behind him and watched our hands and even though no one else probably noticed, Nick Jonas was holding my hand—in the elevator and past the reception desk and all the way into the parking lot-Nick was holding my hand- for anyone and everyone who bothered to look to see.

I sat on my knees in the bucket seat and rolled down my window all the way, but it didn't do anything to help the heat. My shins and knees stuck to the hot leather and I ran my hand along the back of my neck to wipe the sweat that was making my skin prickle.

Nick started the car and as we were pulling out, I leaned over and kissed his cheek. He shook his head at me and drove us away from the hospital and I hoped Jackson would forgive me for that.

I expected us to go to the train tracks, but we didn't.

We went to the old school grounds just behind Olson's lot. There used to be an elementary school there, but it burned to the ground the summer my Mama was pregnant with me. All that was left was old playground equipment and this huge dark field that never grew grass. I used to follow Jackson and Nick there all time when we were kids. They'd drag baseball bats along the gravel all the way to the lot and tell me to get lost as soon as Mama was out of earshot, but I'd always keep following them anyway. Once they took off running and I lost them, but Nick had never picked up the bat and I followed the line in the dirt all the way to them. Even then, I think he knew what he was doing, I think he didn't want to lose me.

The metal slide was dinged up from kids throwing rocks and the sun was blazing off of it, making shiny spots and it _looked_ hot to the touch. Nick sat on a swing and stuck a cigarette in his mouth and watched me grab for the monkey bars for a second before he lit it. I couldn't reach the monkey bars and they were rusty anyway, so I gave up and walked behind Nick and pushed him.

"Remember when we were kids, and you and Jackson used to make me push you on the swings, even though you could get them going faster by yourselves?" I asked.

"Yeah," Nick said and I pushed him forward again.

"We had sex last night," I blurted out.

"Yep," Nick said. "You alright?"

"Yeah…it's not…you know, the boys in my class make all these jokes about cherry popping. Get it? Like because of the—"

"Yeah, I get it."

"Anyway, Lily thinks having sex means like, making love and turning into a woman and Mrs. Truscott thinks it's sinful if you're not married…Daddy never said anything about sex to me and everyone is always saying how it's this huge life altering _thing_ or something…" I trailed off and pushed him forward again.

"So?" he asked.

"So. I don't think it's like that. For me, anyway, I think it was none of those things. I think that with me and you…it wasn't a big deal. I think that we were already connected anyway…and I just don't want you to think that _I_think it's wrong or…I mean. It was just us. Only _physical._"

Nick stayed quiet so I stopped pushing him and walked around to face him. I grabbed the chain link ropes of the swing and he looked up at me and squinted one eye in the sun.

"When did you get so smart, little girl?" he asked, and flicked his cigarette between his middle finger and his thumb up and over my shoulder.

"Maybe when I got boobs. I heard that, what you said to Jackson," I said and smiled. "But did you really notice that? Because compared to like, Taylor or Selena, I'm flat…but mine are bigger than Lily's—"

"I don't wanna talk about Swift or Gomez's tits. You're not flat, anyway," he sighed.

"Did you ever have sex behind Calls Whole Foods?" I asked, because suddenly, I felt free enough to do that.

"Yep," Nick said, and reached forward and poked me in the stomach.

"I can't believe you just told me that."

"You asked."

"When? With Selena? Or—"

Nick pulled on the hem of my shirt and I tried really hard not to feel like crying or hitting.

"Delta Goodrem when I was fourteen. And that's the entire Calls story. For me, anyway."

"You do it with a lot of girls."

Nick didn't say anything, he just pulled me in closer by yanking on my shirt and I remembered about what I thought before. What he did or didn't do doesn't matter, because he's mine, and now I knew it.

His forearms rested on his knees and he looked down to the rocks and dirt on the ground so the top of his head rested against my belly. I put my fingers in the sweaty hair at the back of his head and combed through it and twisted it around.

"I know it wasn't you…but do you think about Selena?"

"Sure…Selena was alright. Oken is a piece of shit. I guess it happens though."

"Yeah…would you ever take me behind Calls?"

Nick laughed then, soft and low and I let my fingers slide to his clammy neck.

"Nah," he finally said, then looked up at me. All of his hair had fallen forward and into his eyes and the back where I had been messing with curled up and all over. "But I'd take you to an old schoolyard."

I laughed and he pulled on me until I was turned and sitting on his lap in the swing. I leaned back and his chin rested on my shoulder and we held on to the chains, my hands just below his.

"You'll stop going with those girls, though, right?" I asked.

"There's no one else Mi."

I nodded and Nick lifted his legs with mine on top of his and we looked at my small feet next to his big ones.

His face went into my neck and I asked him to kiss me and he did, right there on my neck.

"Nick?"

"Hmm?"

"What do you remember about my mother?"

"Jesus…umm…I remember she always smelled good—"

"Gardenia."

"Whatever. I remember once I got a sliver in your backyard—right in my heel and she got it out with tweezers and put Bactine all over it. My mom hated when we played ball with no shoes but your mom used to say it's important to let your feet feel the earth or some shit…once she made hot chocolate and she put rum in it and gave it to me and Jackson—"

"She did?"

"Yeah. I was ten and came home drunk. I wasn't allowed over your house for like a month…I never told my parents it was your mother…they just thought Jackson and I stole it or something…"

"Why would she do that?"

"I don't know. But I remember she was sad a lot—"

"Do you think she hated having kids? Or being married?"

"Nah."

"Well…then _why_?"

"You know Miley…I could tell you the talk of the town or whatever, but it's all bullshit."

"Does Jackson ever say anything? About Mama?"

"Not a lot."

"She should know. About Jackson. She's his mother—he should have a mother here right now. I bet if she knew she'd come back, I bet she would—"

"Miley?"

"What?"

"Have you ever just…asked?"

"What?"

"Have you ever just asked your Daddy about all of this?"

"I…no."

"Maybe you should."


	13. Chapter 13

**Originally I wrote this as a twilight fic but it just didn't feel right, I felt like the whole time I was writing for Bella it was Miley showing through and thought the story fit her better.**

**I liked the idea of making Nick the bad boy and her dad a bit more distant than in the show. I loved the idea of Miley being so sweet and innocent, given her attitude and image lately(which I love also.) Jackson was perfect as being the protector and not such a goofball. Obviously they're not very like their characters in Hannah Montana which was what I was going for. **

**But, just so you know, originally it was Bella's POV instead of Miley's and the bad boy was Edward not Nick. Her brother was Emmett. Lily was Alice, Taylor Swift was Rosalie Hale, and Selena Gomez was Jessica Stanley. Jake Ryan was Mike Newton. And I think that's about it, if I forgot some and you're curious feel free to ask! **

**Sorry I haven't done that well at editing out their names. I have a habit of writing my fics all at once and then hating them and re-writing and such. I'm not a very patient person ;) hehe oops.**

**Thank you to Soul for asking and for also all the awesome reviews and support!xoxo**

I held one arm out of the window and let tiny bits of gravel sting my hand while Nick drove back to my house. I let my head lay back on the sticky, hot seat and put my red chipped toenails on the dashboard and Nick drove with one squinted eye and a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth.

"Dylan is playing at the Palladium next week," Nick said out of nowhere.

"Are you asking me out on a date?" I asked, sitting straight up.

"I'm telling you Dylan is playing next week. I'm going. Are you coming with me?"

"Yes."

Nick nodded his head and I pulled my arm in and leaned up against him while he drove.

"And Nick…I'd love to go on a date with you."

He looked down at me for a split second and rolled his eyes before the corner of his mouth turned up a little bit.

"Are we going steady now, too?" he mocked and pushed my shoulder with his.

"Yes," I said, and pushed his shoulder back with mine.

He reached over the steering wheel with his left hand and pushed the side of my face away and called me ridiculous.

I lifted his arm up and wrenched myself underneath it, even though it was too hot to be that close and told him I think he liked that about me.

He didn't deny it.

Daddy's truck was in our driveway when we pulled up to the house.

"Are you coming in?" I asked, even though I knew he was going to say no.

"No."

I nodded, because I knew I had to go in there alone anyway. Some things not even Nick Jonas can walk you through, and that was scary and true all at the same time.

"Just…ask him Miles."

"Yeah…"

I put my hand over my mouth for a second and tapped my fingers on my cheek…just too nervous to go in there and ask things I needed to ask.

Nick grabbed my hand from my face and kissed me once before telling me to go.

"But what if he yells or says he won't—"

"I'll be around."

"Okay," I nodded, then took a deep breath and got out.

Inside the house was dim and dark. All of the curtains were closed, Daddy must have done that…when it gets really hot out, sometimes Daddy goes around and shuts all of the curtains so the sun stays out. There was no afternoon buzz of a baseball game on the T.V. or the whish of the washing machine…everything was too quiet and still.

I walked up the stairs and the first thing I noticed was Jackson's door was wide open. Jackson's door was never just…wide open.

I stood in the doorway and Daddy was there, sitting on Jackson's bed with a brown paper grocery bag from Calls at his feet, looking down at a yellowing square in his hands.

It looked all wrong, Jackson didn't like people in his room—and I couldn't remember the last time I saw Daddy in Jackson's room at all.

"What are you _doing?_" I blurted out and walked into the room and towards Daddy.

"He's up. He needs a few things," Daddy said, and tossed the square on the bed beside him.

I looked down in the bag and saw Jackson's sweatpants and his toothbrush were in there and Daddy's portable transistor radio.

"He's up?" I asked. "He woke up? Did he say anything? How is he?"

"He's…up. Groggy. But he's…thank god, he's up," Daddy mumbled off at the end.

"He asked for a radio?" I asked, nudging the bag.

"Nah…I just thought…maybe he'd like that," Daddy said, and he rubbed the back of his neck and closed his eyes for a second.

My eyes flicked to the paper on the bed Daddy had dropped and oh!

It was a picture, thin and curled up at the corners and grainy, but a photo I'd never seen before.

"Where did you find this?" I asked, snatching the picture up.

My fingertip touched Mama's smiling face. She was bent over Jackson, who was sitting in front of a big round cake with the number two on it. Her hand was on top of his head, and he had all these soft blonde curls that I supposed he would have when he was two.

It was her, I'd know her from anywhere…but she didn't look like I remembered her looking. She was smiling her smile, the same one Jackson has, with deep dimples, but her eyes were all wrong. Mama was staring past the camera and past Jackson and she looked…_lost._

"Dad…where did you get this?" I asked again.

"It was with his socks," Daddy said.

"Jackson kept a picture of him and Mama?"

"I guess he did."

"How…how come you don't care? Mama…Mama should be here. She should be getting Jackson's things and she—he needs her. How come you don't care that she's gone?" I bleated out.

Daddy sighed and rubbed his hand down his face and he looked tired, but I didn't care—he should care.

"I care, Miles. There's a lot—"

"Don't you even miss her at all? She was your wife and you just…you act like you don't even…why did you let her leave us all like that?" I whispered and folded my arms so that picture pressed right against my chest.

"Your mom, Miley…was very sick…not in a physical way—"

"People say that…but _you._You should've helped her get better—you should've—"

"Jesus, Miley. There were psychiatrists and pills and '_vacations_' and much more…I tried. I tried with your mother more than anything I've ever tried at…she just—"

"I don't remember any of that," I said, and even I was surprised at how…_accusing_ it sounded.

"Good…it's always been my biggest fear that you would," Daddy said. "I gotta take this stuff to—"

"I want to know. I want you to tell me Daddy…because she's my mother and I think that I should know. If what you say is true…I mean, was she a drunk? Did she not love us at all—"

"Do you think that, Miley?" Daddy asked, all quick and sharp.

"I…don't know what I think…I don't know enough to think anything, I guess."

Daddy's hand covered his mouth and he rubbed at the whiskers there for awhile before he spoke again.

"She loved you. Very much…but I think…she just didn't know how to…do this. Miley, it doesn't make much sense to me either…"

"Can you tell me? What you know? Would you do that?" I asked.

"Miley, I don't know what it…what do you want to know?"

"Mama used to tell me you met her at a dance."

"I did…I was outside of the dance with a few buddies…and your mom was going inside with a bunch of her girlfriends…and she had a flower or something in her hair and my buddies started saying stuff to the girls…and they all walked really quick past us…scared I guess…but your Mama, she laughed really loud, in that big way that she did…and she told me to wait for her for two hours, right there in that lot. I did," Daddy said, and his voice was gritty and slow.

"You did that?" I asked.

"You should've seen this flower in her hair," he said and smiled at something that wasn't even in the room with us.

"She told you just to wait?"

"Your Mama…I probably stayed because of that laugh…you laugh like her…you're a lot like your mother. You know that?"

"No, I didn't…"

"Well. You are."

"Does that ever…does it bother you?"

Daddy looked up and blinked at me, like he couldn't believe I just said that.

"_Never_, Miley."

"Why did you let her go?"

"I didn't…_let her go_. You know, when you were four, she left you at a bus stop. Alone. I almost had a heart attack when you turned up at the station…an older couple picked you up and bought you in…when Jackson was about a year old, I left for work one morning and he was sleeping in his crib. When I came home your mother was gone and Jackson was screaming in that damn crib—it was an eight hour shift," Daddy sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Those are two of many worst days of my life. I started having people just…look out for you guys…I don't know if you remember, but your Grandma came to live here for awhile, because I just couldn't _leave_ you two here."

I stared at the picture in my hand and didn't remember a damn thing about any of what he was talking about.

"I loved her very much, Miley…but it got to a point where…my children had to come first. She _did_start to drink and when she said I didn't trust her with you two, I didn't lie to her…and that's when she started to get help. We saw all kinds of doctors, she went on all kinds of medicine, but no one really ever had any kind of answer for us…and sometimes it was okay. And those days are the happiest days of my life, kid. And I think they're hers, too…but she would always slip—things would always happen, just when I thought…this time it'll be different…something would always happen…and I just—look. When it was that hard for me, I knew I could never let it be that hard for you and for J…"

"So…you just let her go?"

"No," he said lightly. "She left. And Miley, I looked. We had the entire station out looking for her…other jurisdictions, other _states_. I heard from her cousin when you were twelve. She told me she was doing well…your Mama was happy…Mama didn't want to be found—"

"But she...she is my _Mama_. I don't…how did she _do_that?"

"I don't know," Daddy said, and he looked up at me, right in the eye. "I don't know. But I know she loved you very much and I think…she thought you'd be better if she wasn't here…maybe that's true and maybe it isn't, Miley…but somewhere along the way, something happened right. Because your brother has turned into a man I'm very proud of and you are…you are everything that was wonderful about your Mama, and then some."

I turned my head to the ceiling and swallowed down hard at the painful lump at the back of my throat, but it didn't help, because the tears came anyway.

"Miley…I know that, uh, it's been rough around here…I know that maybe I haven't been the best _mother_. I don't know how to be a mother—and this isn't what I thought my life would be, either…but that doesn't mean it's bad. You know that I love you though, kid, right? You know none of it was your fault or your brothers fault…"

"Do you ever hate her?" I whispered.

"Not once. I hate what she's done, I hate her illness and I hate some decisions she's made…but I could never hate her."

"I don't think I hate her, either," I said, but it was so strained and so quiet, I barely heard the words myself.

"And Mile? I think we're doing okay."

I wiped at my eyes with the back of my hand and nodded hard.

"We are, Daddy. We're doing okay."

"Yeah…"

"Yeah."

"If, um, if you ever want to talk about anything else…you can ask," Daddy said. "I don't know if I'll know the answers…and I know I don't say too much, but I'd try…"

"Yeah. Maybe I will."

Daddy nodded and stood, then picked up the bag.

"Can I come with you? To bring his things? I'd like to see him, now that he's up—"

"Sure…and Miley?"

"Hmm?"

"Nick Jonas?"

"God, Dad."

"He's got a decent curve ball…watch those fast ones, okay kid?"

"Yeah, Daddy."

"And keep him out of your room."

"Yeah, Daddy."

"Okay," he breathed out and then he scratched the top of his head. "Oh, hey, Miley?"

"Huh?"

"Caught that guy…who put the kid in the creek."

"They did?"

"Yeah, two days before Jackson…well. I knew it was bugging you, thought you'd wanna know."

"Thanks, Daddy."

"Love you baby."

And then my Daddy smiled a smile I hadn't seen in a very long time. One where his eyes creased, all his teeth showed, and he pulled me into a huge hug. I melted into this man who had done his best, who was the best I could ask for and I whispered back, "Love you too Daddy."


	14. Chapter 14

"You can go on in, Miles," Daddy told me, right outside of room 207.

I wasn't sure if he wanted to be alone with Jackson or if he was giving me some kind of time to be alone with Jackson, but I took a deep breath and nodded.

Because this time I could go in. If Jackson was up, if he had woke, the world would be much better, much more in order.

So, I went in.

I stood in the doorway and stared at my feet for a very long time, because even though I hadn't looked yet, I knew Jackon wasn't sitting up in his bed, eating or laughing or bitching.

After I gave up counting the frayed strings of my shoelaces and moved on to counting my heartbeats, there was a kind of slurp or a gurgle noise and my head snapped up.

Jackson was in that bed, half reclined and his purple eyelids kind of twitched and no one had combed his hair yet.

"There's a bag on my side…to hold shit in…"he rasped out, and his swollen dry lips barely moved.

"That's really gross," I whispered back.

Jackson's head turned slightly to me, just barely, so I wasn't really sure if it was on purpose or not. Someone had cleaned off the blood crusted at his nose and the tube that used to be shoved down his throat was gone.

Somehow, like, _impossibly—_Jackson looked…_small_. His shoulders were about as wide as the flimsy bed and his arms were out of the blanket and as big as always, so I couldn't quite understand how he looked…_small_.

His face was white and purple and blue and the whites of his eyes were yellow…but I didn't look away, even though I wanted to—even though Jackson should never, ever look like that and even though I knew I didn't want to have to remember this…I didn't look away.

Because he needed me and I needed him and this is what you _do_ when you're in a family and you don't run away. Maybe Mama couldn't do this, but I could. I could do this for Jackson.

Then I walked right over to that bed and very carefully climbed in, right next to Jackson. I lay very still, I didn't want to touch his tubes or hurt him, and my nose wrinkled.

He smelled faintly of pee and bleach and sterile bandages.

Jackson's head shook, slight but rapid, like an old people's do when they're staring at you.

"Are you okay—are you like—"

"It's…the morphine…"

"Does it hurt?"

"Like hell."

I scooted toward the edge of the bed, farther away from him, because I didn't want to hurt him.

"We used to do this…right after Mama left," I said.

Jackson kind of winced and tried to shift, then gave up and his body went limp against the bed again.

"Are you going to marry Taylor Swift?" I whispered.

Jackson breathed out hard and I identified another smell coming from him—sweat.

"Sure," he kind of wheezed.

"I think…I'd like that," I said.

"Me too."

"I was really worried about you, J."

"You okay?"

I bit down on my lips and nodded.

"Will you fix the screen door, before you marry Taylor?"

"Yeah, kid…"

"You did real good J. I mean it…you did…"

Jackson breathed hard again and his eyes closed then slowly opened.

"Once, Nick told me you had the weight of the whole world on your shoulders…and he said you took on too much…and I guess…it was too much maybe? Because you do too much and it all just kind of fell down on you… and…and Nick? I never meant to be a problem for you, or like, a responsibility…"

"You're not a…problem, Mile. What I said about burdens and shit…I was just pissed."

"Well…but it is kind of like that. But I promise, I'm gonna try real hard to not be a—"

"Shut up, Miley," Nick sighed out and his eyes closed again.

"I didn't mean what I said…about how I'd leave like Mama did. I really, really, didn't mean that," I said and I knew I was going to start crying then.

"I know."

"I still miss her."

"Yeah…sometimes, I do too," Jackson said, and he'd never said anything like that before.

"She shouldn't have left us, Jackson…I would never leave us."

"Mile…I can remember about two seconds after that fucking car fell. _Two seconds_. And all I can remember thinking is…how did she choose this? How did she choose to leave?"

I stared at the ceiling and closed my mouth tight, so he wouldn't hear me crying.

"Yeah," I whispered back hoarsely.

"But she loved us Miley. All of us…and we'll never understand it…and I'll always be pissed off at her for it…but still. I know she loved us."

"Yeah."

"We'll be alright Miley. Maybe she knew that."

"Maybe."

It was quiet and I listened to Jackson breathe too heavily, even for Jackson and I carefully leaned in closer to him, because his body was working so hard to just work, some little kid part of me figured if maybe I leaned in close enough, maybe I could take part of the load off of him—maybe I could carry some of the weight for Jackson once.

The rhythm of his breathing and the quiet footsteps in the hallway and the random beeps lulled me and made me sleepy and I must've fallen asleep because when I opened my eyes Daddy was sitting in a chair next to the bed staring at me and Jackson.

I opened my dry fuzzy mouth and sat up slowly, so I didn't wake Jackson up, but it didn't matter because Jackson was already awake.

His head was kind of turned and he was looking at Daddy, who was looking back at Jackson and before anyone said anything, I knew I interrupted something.

Something between them and not for me at all, and the nosy, overwhelming part of me wanted to whine out '_what_', but I didn't.

"I'll go," I said and swung my legs over the side of the bed.

"I'll be awhile," Daddy sighed, "maybe you oughtta go to the cafeteria—"

"I'll, uh, find a ride," I mumbled before I stood up to say goodbye to Jackson. "I'll be back real soon and I'll tell Taylor you're up."

Jackson blinked at me with his swollen eyes and his mouth was kind of hanging open a little bit, but he gave a slight nod then I walked out to search for a payphone.

I waited outside the entrance of the hospital after I called Nick. I paced the lot that separated the hospital from the pharmacy and wondered about all the things Daddy told me and I wondered if Mama thought of me every single day, the way I thought of her. I wondered if she remembered me how I was, or how she thought I was, like I remembered her. The last time Mama saw me, I was still missing my left front tooth. She doesn't even know what my smile looks like…and I thought that that should make me sad, but it didn't. Because she can't possibly miss what she didn't know…and neither could I.

I could be sorry for all the things I didn't know and she didn't know, but I couldn't make myself miss them. And just when I thought I was on the urge of some kind of epiphany, just when I was making my fourth lap around the lot, Jake Ryan's used car pulled up.

He got out and I could see the sweat making his buzzed hair cut look all shiny and almost white.

"Your brother okay?" Jake asked when he slammed his door shut.

"He's fine," I said stiffly and crossed my arms over my chest.

"Heard he was playing a fool's game of chicken Swift's Thunderbird. Doesn't that kid know better than to drive after a fifth of rum?" Jake scoffed.

I opened my mouth to tell him to shut up because he knew nothing. I opened my mouth to defend Jackson and to set the whole thing straight, but just as soon as the words started to come out of my mouth, I stopped them.

It would be a drop in the bucket, it wouldn't do anybody any good and suddenly it was like I was on the other side of the line. I don't know how it was that distinct that fast, or even if it was…maybe it was gradual and I just didn't see it coming.

But there I was standing across from Jake Ryan and it might as well have been the rest of the town as well. There were the people like Mrs. Truscott and Jake Ryan and Mrs. Call and then there were the people like Edward and Taylor and Daddy…the ones who didn't believe the talk of the church lobby and the ones who didn't talk about it if they didn't know about it…and I was one of those. I'd been burned by it before, so I knew better than to stick my hand in it.

"Alright, Stewart, I gotta pick up a pint of milk for my mom, but you call me if you ever decide you want more than a movie."

"I only do things like that with Nick Jonas," I said, and tipped up my chin, because _that_ I knew about.

Jake tossed his head back and laughed.

"Found true love just like little Lily Truscott? We all know how that turned out…I'll see you in a month, tops."

"I only do things like that with—"

"Yeah, I heard you the first time. Won't be long before he knocks someone up or drives himself into a tree like your brother. That kind doesn't go anywhere, Miley. You'll see. Do me a favor though? Tell that kid to get a haircut. He's starting to look like a damn hippie—"

And then Mike shut up because Nick's Challenger burned into the lot. I turned to go to the car, but Nick got out. He left the door open and the music from inside of his car blared in the heat.

We listened to the Kinks and just when Ray Davies couldn't sleep anymore at night, Nick looked at Jake, then at me then back at Jake.

Then his shoulder brushed my ear when he took three steps forward and punched Jake Ryan in the mouth.

I stood there with my mouth hanging open and staring while Jake clutched his eye and doubled over and screamed at Nick.

"What the hell was that! You're as fucked up as your dirtball friend in the hospital you son of a bitch…"

And it went on and on like that and Nick just stood there, right in front of me, waiting for Jake to come at him but Jake never did.

Then Nick walked past me and to his car and thumped on the top edge of the open door once and looked over his shoulder at me.

"You comin'"?

"I…yeah," I said, and stumbled over to the passenger door.

Nick peeled out of the parking lot and on to the road and he was acting like that just didn't happen at all but his fingers were keeping time with the music and his knuckles were bright red and swelling from Jake's teeth and that was the only way I was sure that whole thing wasn't just a daydream.

"You just punched Jake Ryan in the mouth," I said.

"Yeah, well, maybe that'll keep it shut for awhile," Nick said and grinned at himself.

"But…what about all that stuff about not listening to town bullshit? I mean—"

"Sometimes," Nick said, taking a wide turn at the corner, "I get tired. I guess I pick my battles. The look on your face…that was a battle to pick…and it wasn't much of a battle," he said, and smiled with only the corner of his mouth at me.

"I love you," I said, and not even in the romantic kind of way.

Nick nodded and stuck a cigarette in between his lips and we drove out of town.

"Where are we going? Laying low?" I giggled and poked his cheek with my finger, because I could.

"It's too hot," Nick said swatting my hand away and then he leaned back to drive with one knee while he took his shirt off, then threw it on my lap.

It was damp with sweat so I put it to my face and smelled it and he called me gross.

And that's how we ended up at the old pond in the back woods of Forks. When we were much younger, Jackson, Nick and I would swim here all the time—or they would take turns dunking me and I tried not to drown while they went swimming, anyway.

I stopped swimming at the pond when Lily told me her Mama said you can get diseases or pregnant from swimming in that water with boys. I wasn't so much scared, it's just Lily never wanted to go and we found other things to do—besides, Lily had passes to the public pool anyway.

"I don't have a bathing suit," I said when we were dipping our toes in the murky pond water. My other foot was sinking into the marsh, and it had been so long since I felt that—it made me feel younger and older all at the same time.

"You don't have to go in," Nick shrugged, but then his fingers went to the button on his worn jeans and I stared at the dark hair that trailed way down.

"The last time we went swimming here together, you didn't have hair there," I said, and nodded toward it.

He shook his head and laughed quietly, then he kicked his pants off and he didn't even tell me to close my eyes like he used to but he used two hands to cup around himself and he waded into the water while I watched.

He was a lot broader now, in the shoulders. My face turned red and I watched his summertime shoulder blades tense at the water. His hips were narrow, probably smaller than mine and for the first time I saw two dimples at his lower back, right above his butt.

"Your butt doesn't have any hair on it," I called.

"Not yet," he called with his back still to me and kept walking further in.

"I want to come in, too," I said.

"No one is stopping you," he said when he was waist deep.

Nick turned around and put his wet hands in his hair, making it stand up all over, even though he was just trying to push it back.

I took my shirt off and then my bra and he quickly rubbed a dripping hand down his face and looked right back at my eyes.

"Throw your clothes higher up on the hill, so they don't get wet," he said.

I took my pants off and tossed them, then my underwear and the whole time he acted like I was standing there with all my clothes on, which I was kind of grateful for and kind of insulted by.

I put my arms over my chest and walked with my knees together until I was waist deep in the water.

"Hey Miley," Nick said, and lightly splashed water at me. "Last time we went swimming together, you didn't have hair there, either," he mocked.

I splashed back and let my feet kick up, until I was neck deep and doggy paddling around the water.

Nick leaned back in the water and kicked up one leg to splash at me again and I used two hands to push water back at him. We laughed and twisted in the water and it was such a relief from the heat and from the town and hospital and _everything_ we got giddy and for awhile, it was being like it was all that time ago…only naked.

The surprising part was it wasn't uncomfortable or even…_sexy_.

"Do you hear that," Nick asked abruptly.

"What?" I asked, and immediately put my arms over my chest.

He waded over to the brown reeds and there was a quick splash. He cupped his hands together and jerked his head for me to come over.

"What is it?" I whispered for no reason, tiptoeing over to him, sinking in the mucky bottom.

"Snipe," he whispered back, and I craned my neck to lean over his hands to see, wondering what the heck a snipe was.

He slowly opened his hands, and then my face was full of water.

His laugh echoed loud and deep while I screeched and slapped blindly at his chest. He caught my wrists and I went sailing under the water and came up laughing and snorting water.

I retreated to the other side of the pond, eyeing him suspiciously over my shoulder and he went back to the reeds, still laughing.

"Bullfrog," he hissed a few minutes later, his hands cupped again.

"Do you think I'm stupid?" I laughed, floating on my back.

"Do you want to see it?" he asked, his hands were still cupped and he used his forearm to wipe his wet hair from his forehead.

"No."

"I swear. It's a frog. A baby one. Come look."

"I don't believe you. Besides, why would I want to see a frog?"

"Whatever, I'll let it go," Nick said, turning back around—and he knew it would work and I couldn't even help it because now I wanted to see the damn frog.

I flipped to my stomach and paddled over.

"If this is a splash in the face again I'll kill you," I said.

"No you won't."

He was right, I wouldn't.

I kept my distance this time and leaned over, tense and ready for the splash this time.

A frog jumped from his hand hit me in the neck.

"It was a frog," I screamed, slapping at my own neck.

"I told you," he laughed.

I came at him with a rush of water and he let me, but I didn't splash, I just threw my arms around his neck.

"I really missed playing with you," I said, because I had. Things had gone from childhood to tense secret, and I almost forgot what Nick could be like in the middle of all of that.

I let my legs float up in the water and went to wrap them around his waist, and my eyes went wide, because I felt _him_ all smooth but hard in the water and we weren't wearing any clothes.

When my unsure movement faltered he grabbed my hips, so I knew it was okay and then I felt him much warmer than the rest of the water right in the middle of my legs.

_It_ was pressed between both of us and he rolled his shoulders underneath my arms and his eyes closed.

"I think this is what Mrs. Truscott meant when she said you could get pregnant swimming with boys," I smiled.

"Nobody's getting pregnant," Nick said, and his hips moved against me in a kind of circle. I put my arms tighter around his neck and our chests slipped together when he kept making those circles and all the sudden I was breathing hard because his other parts were doing what his fingers usually did to me and I had the sudden urge to tell him to go faster or harder or _something._Only three other times when he used his fingers on me this feeling came over me and I loved this feeling, but instead of telling him I put my chin on his shoulder and pushed back into him.

"Whoa," he breathed out and his fingers pinched at my sides. "Easy…"

I lifted my hips until I felt the top of it and I remembered that burning full feeling from the other time and I wanted it again, so I started to push down, but he put his hands under my butt and held me up.

And hissed out of his teeth, then took a deep breath in through his nose without ever opening his eyes.

"No one gets pregnant, remember?" he asked through gritted teeth.

I kissed his neck and he put his head back and I kissed a kiss necklace ear to ear on him, then I kissed one shoulder, then right under his chin then he told me to stop so we could get out and go to the car.

I pushed off of him and turned to swim when we heard a low whistle and a rustle of leaves.

There was a tug on my ankle and with a quick splash and a small gulp of water I was behind Nick's back.

"Get the hell outta here, Truscott," Nick called and I looked over his shoulder to see Tyler Truscott with one arm, just watching us from the ponds edge.

"Nothing wrong with feeling the love," Tyler said, and he raised his one hand up in the air and let it kind of sway around.

"Get lost," Nick said back and he reached one arm behind himself to make sure I was there and covered by him.

"I ain't gonna tell no one what I see…don't be afraid, kids. Love is gonna take over. It's gonna change us all…it'll set you free, you just gotta share it."

"Ew," I blurted out from behind Nick and Tyler laughed something loud and full.

Nick groaned and muttered something about crazy. Tyler made a peace sign at us and told us he could tell we were in love, and there is nothing better for the world.

I kind of agreed.

"Yeah, well, we'll let you know when we're ready to share it," Nick said. "Can you take off so I can get my girl out of the water?"

"I ain't trying to hurt nobody. I never meant to hurt anybody. Not one of them," Tyler said.

"Yeah. I know, buddy," Nick said and I remembered that once Lily told me her brother killed twelve people in Vietnam. I could never put _that_ together Tyler together with the gun shooting Tyler. He bought in our Christmas trees, he didn't kill people…and right then I guessed that Tyler was having a hard time putting himself in both sets of those shoes, too.

Probably like Jackson did when he was fun around Taylor and pissed off at home.

Probably like Nick was when he was with Jackson or with me.

Or even Lily, when she was in Oliver's backseat or at church with her mother.

It's all just a matter of being able to put it together, and I guessed most of the time, the lucky ones are able to do that.

Tyler nodded at Nick and swallowed hard, then turned his back and Nick reached for my hand and we quietly made it to the edge of the pond.

Nick got out first and quickly put his jeans on, then grabbed my clothes and helped me out of the water and the whole time my mind was working on how everyone was kind of just trying to…_reconcile._

He put my shirt on over my head while I struggled with my shorts over my wet skin and the whole time Nick had his eyes across the pond on Tyler, who didn't turn around once.

I picked up my shoes while Nick jammed his feet in his and he grabbed my hand and I looked over my shoulder once more at Tyler, who hadn't turned around and never meant to hurt anybody.

In the car Nick shook his hair out but never did get around to buttoning his jeans and there were still droplets of pond water on his eyelashes. I pulled my wet shirt away from my chest and sighed while he dug in the counsel for a rumpled pack of cigarettes.

"Do you think he's crazy?" I asked.

"I think…he got dealt a shitty hand in life. Shoot, I'd be crazy, too…but he's a brave kid. Can't hate him or blame him, I guess."

"I think my Mama was kind of crazy, too. Not like that…but you know. About all that stuff she did."

"Yeah, I know."

"Well. I guess…it's kind of like the same thing with Tyler," I said. "I can't really blame her or hate her. She just got dealt a shitty hand, too. I guess sometimes, it's just too hard to figure everything out about yourself, and make all the pieces match up…but I hope that maybe someone can help Tyler."

Nick turned his head to me and squinted one eye for half a second before he smiled at me.

"Me too," he finally said, and stuck a cigarette between his lips and started the car.


	15. Chapter 15

Four weeks later, Nick, Taylor and I were in Jackson's hospital room playing rummy.

In pairs.

"Anything today?" Taylor asked, and she let her hand rub up on Jackson's toes, covered in that blue blanket.

We all stared at Jackson's feet and the blanket moved a tiny fraction.

"No better than yesterday," Jackson sighed.

"But that's good! It won't be overnight, we know that. And you're still doing really good; a lot better every day," Taylor said, and her eyebrows were all raised and scrunched up like they had been for four weeks now.

"You know… it's just sick, how it only took a second for it to happen and all this time to get better," Jackson said, letting his head fall back on the pillow. His face was back to normal and all of the wires and tubes were gone now, but his eyes were always much more tired, and most of me knew he would probably always look like that now. "But I guess… that's just the way things happen. I mean… one second can ruin everything…"

"But you'll get better. It just takes a lot of time," I shrugged. Because I knew that now.

Sometimes it takes a long time to heal, and maybe you never _do_heal all the way… but if you give it time, chances are things will get better.

Even _good_.

Taylor put her cards down on the flimsy card table and twisted her fingers together.

"Knock it off, T. It wasn't your fault," Jackson said, and he pointed a finger at her, like she'd better believe him.

She forced a smile for him, then bit her bottom lip to keep it in place. Jackson scowled at her and turned, looking at me.

"How's Dad?" Jackson asked, changing the subject, which was dumb- he just saw him hours ago.

"Fine," I said. "He doesn't charge Katie for anything anymore and she does a whole lot more."

"They definitely fuck," Jackson said, raising his eyebrow.

"I know."

"You okay with that?" he asked.

I shrugged and touched Jackson's toes. Two weeks ago I could squeeze them as hard as I wanted to and he couldn't feel it, but I can't do that anymore, and that was a very good thing. He could feel.

"Katie's alright. She makes Daddy talk about his day at work and she insisted he help clear the table the other day. He acts like he hates it, but I think he likes it," I said.

Jackson nodded and the room went silent again.

"Well. Someone tell me _something_. I'm sick of nurse's gossip," Jackson said.

"They caught the guy that put that kid in the creek," I said.

"You still on that?" Jackson asked.

"Well, it bothered me."

"I remember."

"It feels like closure or something," I shrugged.

Nick shifted at my side and used the edge of his nail to bend all four corners of a four of diamonds.

"Wanna see my scars?" Jackson asked.

"No," Taylor and I said at the same time.

"Sure," Nick said and stood up to go to the side of the bed.

Jackson lifted the blanket and his gown and I stared at Nick. He looked down and his expression never wavered from calm when he let a low whistle out.

Taylor flinched then leaned over to look. She immediately burst into tears.

"Aw, hell, Taylor, you shouldn't have looked," Jackson said and let the blanket drop.

"It's awful," she snorted and wiped the back of her eyes.

"Hey. A fucking car fell on top of me and here I sit, playing cards- and winning at that. I'm a hero or some shit like that. Quit crying. It'd take a lot more to break me," he grinned.

I smiled back at him, because it was true. Jackson is the strongest person I know.

Nick plopped in his chair and without even thinking about it, I leaned over and put my fingers in the back of his hair.

He tensed and my eyes snapped to Jackson.

"What the hell is this?" Jackson asked and his eyes went from Nick to me then back to Nick.

I tipped my chin up and kept my hand on the back of Nick's neck.

"It's fine and good Jackson," I said. "It's really—"

"You know what? Don't ask, don't tell. For now. But move your hand. It's weird to see."

"For now?" I asked flatly.

"I can't very well get up and kick his ass right now, can I?" Jackson asked.

"It was a sucker punch last time," Nick said, and he reached back and tugged my hand from his neck.

"You had it coming," Jackson said.

"Maybe. But not for the reasons you think," Nick shrugged.

"Jackson? Okay, look… you know, I've been thinking," I said, and he stared at me with a very unamused expression. "You…you didn't tell me you wanted to marry Taylor. And Daddy never actually says anything about Katie… and me and Nick are… the thing is, Jackson, we're all like, holding each other back, by trying to be there only for each other. You know? And that can't be good. For anybody."

When I shut up, everyone was staring at me.

"I want to talk to Nick. Alone. Right now," Jackson finally said.

"Oh, get off it, Jackson," I said and waved my hand dismissively.

"I don't mind," Nick said.

"I mind," I said. "Now that I know you'll be fine, I don't mind pissing you off. You're not about to have a man to man talk about my sex life—"

"Jesus," Jackson and Nick both uttered and bristled at the same time.

"Well," I sighed.

"Just… five minutes, Miley. Just go," Jackson said, and Nick squinted one eye at me and grinned.

"Fine. Nobody threaten anyone. Come on Taylor. Let's go find some Twizzlers or something."

Twenty minutes later I was on my porch at dusk, curling my toes on the cement stoop and bugging Nick to tell me what Jackson had said.

"I'd tell _you_," I said.

"You have a big mouth," Nick said and flicked my ear.

"Just tell me."

"No."

"I have a right to know."

"Believe me, you don't," Nick said, and his mouth kind of turned into a smile.

"What? He's concerned about my virginity? He told you he'd kill you? He asked if you love me?"

"None of the above. Quit bugging me."

"Nick," I said and turned to put my bare feet in his lap. "Don't keep secrets. It turns into a disaster for us."

Nick rolled his eyes and inhaled the cigarette hanging from his lips without even touching it with his hands.

"He can barely feel his toes, Miley," he finally said pointedly and looked at me from the corner of his eye.

"But the feeling is coming back. He'll walk again. Besides, what does that have to do with anything? Don't try to change the subject because—"

"Miley Ray, goddammit_._ He can't shower yet, so the hospital aides give him a sponge bath and something concerned him."

"Did they hurt him?" I asked, sitting up.

"No."

"Oh. Then. So?"

"God. So my father is his doctor and he had a question he didn't feel comfortable asking, so he asked me about it, to see if I could find out."

"What was the question?" I asked, throwing my hands in the air, now just off-track, confused and exasperated.

Nick flicked the cigarette out the window and looked at me.

"He wanted to know if he'll ever have a hard-on again. Okay?"

"Oh. Oh! Oh, yuck—you shouldn't have told me that!"

Nick laughed and put his arm around my neck, then pulled me down so my face was smushed into his chest while I giggled and tried to pull away.

"Miley," Nick said, ignoring my struggle, "this whole time, I thought I was just waiting for you to grow up."

"Haven't I beautifully?" I asked, my voice muffled by his shirt.

"No. And I don't think you're ever going to."

He laughed and I twisted and squirmed and slapped at him in the not so bad headlock.

Behind us the screen door banged open and hit the siding of the house. I heard Daddy and Katie's footsteps and Nick said hey to them, but didn't let me up.

"We're going to have dinner with Jackson," I heard Daddy say, and I twisted so I could see him and Katie ahead of us on the sidewalk, under Nick's arm. Katie smiled and Daddy stared for half a second at my restrained predicament. "Nobody in the house," he finally said, before they walked to the car.

"It's a lovely night, huh Stewart?" Nick asked, keeping me in his hold with ease while I laughed and kept clawing to get out.

"Let me up."

He looked up at the orange and pink and blue sky and studiously ignored me.

"Nick?"

"What?"

"I really love you."

"I know it."

He leaned down and kissed the top of my head and I stopped struggling for a second, and just let my head rest in his lap.

"Okay. Let me up now."

"No."

But he did after a second and when he did, I retaliated and found myself straddling his lap. I played with the top of his hair, letting my fingers twist in it and stand it up and smooth it down and do it all over again while he poked my sides and rested his forehead on my neck.

"Uh, Mile?"

"Hmm?"

Nick leaned up and looked over my shoulder.

"Lily Truscott is definitely standing right behind you."

My fingers froze in his hair and he lifted me off his lap, then I scooted close to his side.

"What do you want?" I asked Lily, glaring up at her. We hadn't spoken since we both said awful things to each other.

"I was real sorry to hear about Jackson. We prayed for him, have every day since, and I heard he's doing a lot better now."

"That was a month ago, but thanks anyway," I shrugged.

"Yeah," Nick interrupted, "I'm gonna go inside and—" I grabbed his arm and attempted to hold him in place.

"Let go," he grinned at me, yanking his arm back, but I held on tighter. "If she throws a punch I'll come back out," he said and didn't bother to lower his voice.

"Wait, Nick," Lily said, holding up one palm. "I said awful things about you… and I'm sorry."

"No problem," Nick shrugged and I wanted to hit him.

Lily nodded and smiled at him and I sneered at both of them. Nick got up and patted my head then walked inside.

"Wow. You guys are like… _together_."

"Yep."

"It looks nice. I'm happy for you."

"Lily. You are not," I sighed.

"Okay. I'm jealous," she shrugged.

"I know."

"Oliver, uh-"

"I know," I said, nodding to her naked finger.

"Yeah. He went to Texas. Or he said he was going to, anyway. My mom thinks the Devil got to him."

"Hah!"

"I know," Lily said flatly and her shoulders kind of sagged. I scooted over on the porch and Lily sat next to me so our shoulders were touching.

"I gave Jake Ryan a blow job last week."

"Ew. Why?"

"I didn't want to walk home," Lily said, and then she started to giggle and then I was laughing, too.

"I was wearing new wedges," Lily shrugged and choked in between our laughter.

"Oh, Lily."

"I know."

"So, do you and Nick…"

"I love him. And I think in the _real_ way…"

"I think he loves you, too."

"Yeah."

"Tyler left home. We don't know where he is."

"Shit, Lil. I'm sorry."

"Yeah. My mom thinks he's lost but… maybe he's better off."

"Maybe."

"I'd like to see Jackson sometime… if that's okay."

"Sure. Maybe tomorrow."

"I'd like that."

Lily stood up and Nick came back outside.

"See ya," I said.

"Bye," Lily called over her shoulder.

Nick sat back down and I took the bottle of Coca-Cola from his hand.

"That girl," Nick said, nodding toward Lily's back, "is gonna be a world of trouble."

"Probably."

"Definitely."

"Well, whatever happens… to any of us, we'll all be okay, I think."

"Me too," Nick said, and I leaned against him, because the air was getting cooler at night and the summer was almost over.

I curled my knees to my chest and thought of all the things that happened under the oppressive heat of the strange days of the summer of 1967.

All of those days seemed to flow into the next and they were all surreal and sometimes horrible, and sometimes really, really wonderful… and either way, you can't stop them.

You just have to open your eyes and try to see clearly and go for the ride, and if you did that— you'd turn out to be one of the lucky ones.

Jackson would be okay, I was sure of it.

His injuries made him ineligible for the draft and that's when Taylor finally stopped walking around with that guilty, worried look on her face all the time.

He'd walk again, and he'd go on to marry Taylor Swift, and they'd have kids. Four of them. And they'd all live in a house in Pine Grove like Lily had wanted to. But it turned out that was a life for Taylor and Jackson, not Lily.

No one ever saw or heard from Oliver Oken again, including Selena Gomez, who had his son.

Tyler Truscott would resurface infrequently every so often, but the last anyone had ever seen or heard from him was in the autumn of 1977. It's anyone's guess what happened to him, but Nick and I like to think that he found the love out there somewhere.

Daddy married Katie in the backyard, after Jackson fixed the screen door, and then she was in charge of the whole bank book and he doesn't pay her for _anything_ anymore, but she still made us dinner and she told me "not to show off or mention to your father" the black lace bra she bought me.

Nick went away to college, but he came back every summer for skinny dipping and me. We still whispered on the phone 'til midnight most nights, and we made promises we'd keep forever. Even when he was gone, he was never really away; I always still had him— and he had me. And eventually, he even got around to telling me how much _he_ needed _me_, but I already figured that out.

In the summer of 1969 when I'd graduated, he came home and we took a road trip to Bethel, New York where there was what was _supposed_ to be a small music festival. Lily came with us and discovered psychedelic trips and love and she didn't come home with us. Mrs. Truscott cried and told most folks Nick and I were influences of the devil.

Mama probably wasn't ever going to come back, and maybe someday I'd see her again, maybe not. And maybe I'd get more answers about her, when and if I needed them. But right then, in that spot in my life, I was loved and I was okay and I could understand how sometimes life isn't always what you think it _should_ be.

And that's probably for the best.

* * *

Thank you so much for all the support and reviews! I have another story in the works that's a bit darker, stay tuned! Let me know what you think about the ending


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